I will go as far as to say MOST pursuits are duller from the inside.
Take being a writer. It’s a romanic and awesome life, right? Or, is it? Maybe it can be. But from my understanding, it’s a lot of down time. Often wandering around in your underwear and mumbling to yourself. It’s rejection and failure. It’s writing 10,000 poems in the hopes of finding 300 good ones.
My dad had this complaint of being a fighter pilot in the Air Force so many years ago. You know why? Because actually flying was about two percent of his week. The other 98% of his time was spent on office work and meetings and spreadsheets. And what fighter pilot wants to fiddle with that?
Some pursuits are much duller from the inside. Even piracy, they say.
-Nassim Taleb, The Bed Of Procrustes