Lonely breaks

I think the hardest part of being my type of entrepreneur/researcher is how lonely it gets. The chance meetings in the hallways (Hello Peter Hi Articulate) are about all I get.

I no longer expect email to bring me unexpected news, or for the telephone to ring from some unrecognized area code. I remain surprised, when on occasion I notice someone having found my somewhat neglected Personal Research Website by searching for [My Real Name]. But they never call or write. Not lately.

I don't expect it anymore. It's all on me. It all depends on me solving some of the problems I've laid before me. First things first. I've been working on this major unresolved issue. I keep organizing my thoughts in notes, modifying them, commenting on them, saving version after version, printing them out, dating and signing them, then pasting them into my patent notebook, just in case I ever need to document when I arrived at an idea, to set precedence over someone else making claims of priority.

And I understand that the loneliness (at work) will remain unchanged at least until I've got these proofs-of-concept complete, until I've made some demos, hopefully garnered some clients, at least stimulated some interest. At a typical workplace, we take breaks. We talk to colleagues around the copy machine, or in the hallways. I've no colleagues here, just office neighbors. Someday, I'll be once again surrounded by intelligent, enthusiastic, exuberant, committed, stimulating people. But for now, it's just me and Moose*.

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* Long time readers may recall my laptop was named Di. My seven-month-old desktop is Moose. Say hello, Moose.