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# Finding My Way
- URL: https://www.fireinthecave.com/findin/
- Published: 2026-09-06T18:25:30.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-10T14:01:39.000Z
- Author: David Howe

## Do I know Myself?

Right when I thought that I found a way forward in my life and in work, I find myself right back at an eerily similar feeling position. Full circle. Once again feeling [drained](https://fireinthecave.substack.com/p/the-competence-trap), open to new possibilities, wrestling with how I can make them real, and still have the ability to earn enough for living.

This feeling reminds me of when I had completed my PhD. At the time, my ambitions were to find a role where I could use my newly developed skills. In retrospect, what I was looking for was finding a place that would allow me to use my creativity and intellect. I thought that my calling at the time was finding new disease treatments and working with teams to accomplish that.   
  
This time as I grapple with new opportunities and trying to find a new directional heading has been proving more difficult than I have previously experienced. I am going back through my PhD and working life and processing my own experiences. This is an example with material that I know.   
  
I am just trying to find out why I am feeling drained while working in similar areas and if I can modify my approach to shake that feeling.  
  
I had worked at a pharmaceutical company while earning my PhD. I acquired cross-domain experience that shaped how I think and operate. I assumed that breadth would lead to more aligned roles. Instead, I was evaluated like a newly minted PhD with no experience.   
  
I was looking for opportunities before hiring filters were coming to be widely used. The problem was that standard HR or consultants screened your resume and had a difficult time with someone with a nontraditional background. The hiring groups treated each area of my job history as being on its own and not as a summation of the capabilities of the candidate.   
  
I can only imagine how difficult it has become with current screening methods and now the introduction of AI and automation to the hiring process. Right now the hiring process is treated like a gauntlet with the best candidates making it through the process. Maybe that is a problem.   
  
The use of AI in the hiring process could change the process for the better. Can you imagine a generative approach based on the resume to start telling more about the candidate and not just a checkbox filter? You could find high performing candidates that can grow into a position with a little time and not just hiring a journeyman that may not be as engaged.  
  
Another major deterrent in the search was that I had to find roles to apply to that were not the usual for a medicinal chemist hired in pharmaceutical companies. Basically, I had a medicinal chemistry degree with cross-domain training or more plainly, I was a square peg trying to fit in a round hole.   
  
Most companies hire organic chemists and they would learn some medicinal chemistry through years of synthesizing organic molecules for testing. I was trained at the point that a medicinal chemist in the industry would arrive at after many years of experience. I did not have the organic chemistry background they used as an entry condition. This was not just in medicinal chemistry. It is the same problem across all departments. My expertise falls into other departments, but when they see the area that I studied they think that I am an organic chemist only. Quite frankly, I was qualified for higher positions than what I was applying for.

Thinking back through this time, I missed it. In my article, I go through Benjamin Zander's presentation of the invisible gorilla experiment [\[1\]](#fn1).  
He could replay the video and point out the gorilla because he had seen the tape before. But in your own life, there is no Zander to tell you to look. No one is going to tap your shoulder and tell you to stop counting passes.

My original take suggested pattern recognition and a happiness marker could help you discover new opportunities. Flow to your happiness was the suggestion. Now, I am revising that besides flow to your happiness that there are other negative sensations such as bumpiness, stress, nagging or feeling drained which help you start looking for those hidden opportunities. It is more like a cycle of count passes to move into a direction and negative feelings are more like proximity or directional markers. Essentially you have other inputs that provide feedback that pulls you out of counting passes.

This feedback shifts you from **Inattentional Blindness** or being too focused to what I describe as zooming out. Your attention can now scan for other potential patterns which gives you the ability to see invisible gorillas.

It is not that we lack the ability to see these invisible gorillas in our life, but we need to own the outcome. In a spiritual sense, it is like a combination of know yourself, be curious, and imaginative.

You need to know yourself enough to set or detect the direction.

You do not completely control how you arrive there or what the final destination really is.

Keep your curiosity to keep probing your direction. This may be more like fine tuning and feeds back to know yourself. Using your imagination whether this creates something visual or feeling that you pick up through your curiosity helps to define, pulls you and helps you recognize arrival. This is the shift with pattern recognition that allows the possibility of other paths and arrival destinations that have the chance to fulfill you. If not, pattern recognition allows you to keep sampling.

This cycle hopefully informs you on knowing yourself.

### I Used to Know Myself

There I was. I was working full-time to change my direction and pursuing the PhD that gave me practical cross-domain work. I was working to support my family and provide to give me some breathing room to pursue the PhD. The other caveat was that I was paying out of pocket and a work program also contributed to pay for my PhD. I got to choose what I wanted to pursue.

Even within the Medicinal Chemistry department, I had to choose between the advisors that all had different philosophies. I could have joined a group that was set up more like industry. One professor was an old school organic chemist. His group were synthesizing, purifying and would have another group doing the biological testing which was led by another professor. Other professors ran groups where they were operating across domains.

I was drawn to a Professor who was alright with me continuing to work in Pharma. I am not saying he was enthused about it, but it was not seen as a problem to start. The other benefit is that the labor was free for my contributions. Just needed to cover the supplies so more work could be accomplished to support his grant work.

The other benefit of working in his group was that many cross-domain activities were occurring. The work was meant to try to understand how an enzymatic target worked. This activity was done in many different ways through biochemistry, molecular biology, protein crystallography and organic chemistry. I joined a group that incorporated different datasources to figure out a puzzle in essentially a discovery type setting.

I had to do many tasks and learn enough in multiple fields to get to the medicinal chemistry portion. Pharma was set-up as a collection of experts. Every function provided the experimental data and results to the top of the organization for decisions.

I have been revisiting different times in my life trying to figure out a direction. This time the hidden gorilla analogy is hitting me differently. I chose a mentor where I had the chance to work across disciplines to figure out a problem and solution. I used the counting passes to earn the PhD. I also knew about the compartmentalization in pharma. While earning my degree, I started moving into other departments along the way with the hopes of improving my chances of landing a position aligned with what I wanted when I graduated.

The story about moving positions in pharma while earning my PhD is not just prudent career planning. In retrospect it looks like it, but at the time issues arose that prompted me to look at life after the PhD. This occurred in each group transfer. An issue came up and I could have fought to maintain or I could look at where I was trying to go. I chose the latter. I enjoyed the graduate work and knew that was the way. Agitation pulled my attention back to scan the direction and I found other opportunities along the way.

This version was different. I was essentially counting passes in two different areas. The agitation at work caused a reevaluation of direction. Earning the PhD was now the gravity well and I was finding closer aligned work opportunities along the way. I was finding hidden gorillas through others also trying to complete their PhD while working.

I found some others that were trying to do the same thing. They understood the toll. They also had families. Kindred spirits trying to make their way forward. New opportunities came into being through this new network.

I did not have to quit work and pursue the PhD. New support emerged from unlikely places. I could still support the family commitments and now support my work life and my PhD life which allowed me to stay independent on all fronts.

Maybe this is an obvious statement or conclusion, owning as much of the process or trying to keep whatever agency that you have allows you to get to know yourself. Knowing yourself is the basis for trying to navigate the world.

As I was working on my PhD and working, I was able to keep being curious and engaging the imagination with pattern recognition to start seeing my destination. The support team or comrades sharing stories from the trenches helped with being able to share experiences, but looking back it is easier to be brave when others were also walking the path.

I am not saying that there was safety in numbers, but knowing others were also walking similar paths changed the journey from arduous to something doable. You still had to make your way up and over the mountain, but others could help when the path felt treacherous. There is that comforting feeling that you are not the only one which appears to matter more than I realized at the time.

### Career Plinko and the Right Mountain

So after graduating I had to modify my approach. I had started a career direction and had to marry my PhD to it. My colleagues were supportive, but I was the only one that completely changed directions with my PhD. They found similar programs to the areas that they were working in.

I looked for tangential footholds and hoped that it would eventually lead to where I wanted to go.

Looking back, it was a fool's errand and I was playing career Plinko. It is tempting to feel like you have no control over where the chip lands, but that is not exactly accurate. You always have control of your actions that contribute to each bounce, but there are external factors that also play a part in the bounce. The major factor is that you have to fit in the structure of the company. This is a choice at the beginning. You may modify your expectations in order to have a chance at landing a position over time that fulfills you in the way that you wish.

Now in going through this section of the writing, it looks like I may be suggesting that the Plinko boards are unfair. This is not about fairness or being wrong. The companies have budgets, reporting to Board of Directors and how they set up to do the task. The promotions and bonuses are also controlled through Board of Directors. I learned this over time and working at many companies.

The other sobering part in this assessment is that you can only control what you do. You cannot expect that companies will change for you. Maybe they should reevaluate how they set up, but I wouldn't count on that. They need to face a major challenge that negatively affects the company to do that and the traditional version of this is layoffs. Just shrink the corporate structure but still retain the general shape of the company.

The corporate ladder defines the geometry of the board you are playing, and external factors like your manager, their manager, management from other departments, co-workers and a list of others all are involved in this interplay. You contribute to the interactions but in no way control the outcomes.

In Plinko, gravity on the board only pulls down and you bounce as you hit the pins as you traverse the board into the predetermined bins at the bottom. You feel like you are progressing on the way down. You fixate on doing your part for the corporation. Following the career ladder guidance. Working with others.

You misread a team interaction or the project you are working on falls short of expectations. You potentially miss other opportunities along the way as you continue to climb the ladder. The inattentional blindness results from continually pushing to get to your desired destination.

I have to be honest. This career Plinko revelation came upon writing this article. At the time, I believed that I was working on a career trajectory and continuing in my consulting projects.

Instead of doing work to fulfill me, I had to strive to position myself to bounce to the part of the board that looks promising to eventually landing on a perfect fit. If that landing was not the perfect position, then hopefully it gave more than enough money. I am not sure what more than enough money would entail for a position, but probably lotto type odds for that eventuality also. I would put in much effort and time towards that, but in reality there never was a position like that for me except in upper management and probably not there either.

Fewer and fewer possibilities in the structure. I was playing and trying to land in a square at the bottom of the board that was equivalent to Powerball odds of winning the jackpot.

Those types of positions are not rewarded by working through the belly of the corporation.

I knew myself back when pursuing my PhD. I lost myself in the time after PhD. I was busy playing corporate Plinko and trying to land my token in the space on the board that was equivalent to lottery odds. I also had to make compromises in myself and my expectations just to have my token travel down the Plinko board.

Which brings me to the harder, liberating realization that I wasn't just failing to climb,

**I had never been on the Right Mountain at all.**

![Playing plinko on wrong mountain](https://storage.ghost.io/c/60/27/6027ea45-0ce4-4563-a08f-f1411237182d/content/images/2026/09/editorial_conceptual_illustration__a_vintage_vertical_wooden_plinko_board_with_brass_pins_set_against_an_open_sky__small_wooden_tokens_cascading_downward_in_rigid_tracks__a_small_human__3339946153.png)  
*Playing plinko on the wrong mountain*

Now the feeling [drained](https://fireinthecave.substack.com/p/the-competence-trap) makes more sense even in consulting. I am decent at playing the game, but still constrained by the titles and domains that I worked in. These carried over each company and it follows me when consulting. I am still playing that original career Plinko board. For those more into spiritual terms, I guess this would be karma that is defining my story.

At first, arriving back to this stage in my life was surprising. Not being on the right mountain was very shocking to me. More time has definitely passed in my life and, in society norms for career progression, I should be gliding to retirement. Earning as much as I can to someday live how I want to.

If I am not on the right mountain, how do I get there?

What does it look like on the right mountain and do I want to wait for retirement to decide that?

I was expending immense cognitive and emotional effort trying to engineer an ascent out of a game designed purely for descent and the landing row never had a position for me. The challenge is no longer about learning to bounce better off the next peg; it is about stepping off the board entirely to find the terrain actually worth climbing.

This time I am reevaluating my approach going forward.

### Revising Finding Hidden Gorillas

Previously, I had refined the hidden [gorilla](https://fireinthecave.substack.com/p/signal-in-the-silence-why-you-miss) experiment and inattentional blindness. I am suggesting that what I originally described as a happiness marker is better described as a curiosity marker. The counting passes at least in my case was driven by investigation of this curiosity.

The happiness marker based on the examples so far acts like a feedback modifier. There are other negative sensations such as bumpiness, stress, or nagging which help you start looking for those hidden opportunities. The modification appears to be inhibitory to the counting of passes, but one could argue that it is stimulatory to your attention by shifting it from zoomed in to zoomed out. Giving you the chance to now look for patterns across a broader scope. In the counting passes portion, pattern recognition is focused more on the in the moment type activities.

I wanted to see if this was more commonplace throughout my life. If so, would recognizing this potential mechanism help me where I am at now?

Over the last 14 years, I would describe my journey as based on forward guidance based on my previous 18 years of experience. Very much the corporate personal goal setting method was still ingrained in my thinking. You try to project which skills you would like to acquire for where you see yourself. You learn more technical skills, show leadership through managing direct reports and through people pleasing or indirect influence as HR (human resources) would call it and hope that you are recognized for career growth. If not, then you either accept the conditions or seek another position that would help you advance.

Back in my corporate career, I believed that ultimately your fulfillment while working was dependent on you. Security in this space was derived through growing your skills. I survived downsizing in junior roles before completing my PhD. I observed senior employees that were devastated when they received the news that their position no longer was needed.

That scene was awful and it shook me more than I realized. Shortly after the restructuring, I started my PhD while working at the same company and my journey of constantly improving my skills. Funny thing happened later on my corporate journey when I was affected by downsizing.

I had gone through hell and I gained my last skill that I needed or believed that I needed. I felt liberated and done with the corporate side. I was not sure what was next, but it was the only direction for me.

This first scene, I believe, was one of my first hidden gorillas found in my early corporate career. I was happy learning new skills and having my first job in an area I wanted to work in. The restructuring may not have been the ultimate reason for pursuing my PhD. It did open up my eyes about corporate life and the toll of going through the waiting to hear the news and seeing the aftermath. My attention was shifted from business as usual and new opportunities appeared. My hidden gorilla changed corresponding other opportunities from that mindset change.

Let's continue the recounting and searching if this theme reoccurs.

Alright now we are back after receiving my PhD. I was in management leading a growing group of scientists. Looking like I was finally going to be in charge of the department and making another foothold on the corporate ladder.

I worked on mentoring and leading our science efforts and ensuring they aligned with the disease areas the company was pursuing. In this we had representatives from the other groups in the department working in cross-functional teams. I worked with the other group leaders to ensure that we were also supporting these functions and addressing problems for those teams. Bottom line is that drugs need to be discovered and advanced.

It was not always fun. Aspects of the job I did not like. The biggest hurdle for me was competition. I held my own, but I would do what I could and give kudos to those more junior. Make sure that their parts were acknowledged. I tried to give the members of the department enough runway for their promotion or career growth opportunities.

A person's ability to be promoted was rarely only about the job done. You found that promotions were mostly affected by narrations or stories told about the person. Once a narration was formed in management, it was nearly impossible to break or change it.

You received feedback only in generalities with no clear path to improve, while others contributed comments in closed-door promotion meetings that you couldn't verify as honest or argue that they were taken out of context. Your career was dictated by factors never discussed upfront nor were the meetings open for defense.

In retrospect, when I led the department, I was just trying to positively influence those narrations to protect my team's position on the Plinko board. I found that my team for the most part heavily relied on climbing the corporate ladder. They viewed that standing as evidence of their place and recognition by the company of their effort.

I never quite fit into the corporate structure. I sucked at self promotion. I did not manage up effectively nor appreciate the importance of it.

There were other factors as described previously in the corporate Plinko game. This is another hidden gorilla type acknowledgment coming out in the writing. An employee never completely controls all variables. I had partaken in the Plinko game on both sides of the ledger doing the assessing of employees across the department and I guided my direct reports to improve their chances while being assessed on my own merits. Not all managers take this approach. I never had that luxury of having that type of manager in any of my corporate roles.

This failing of not landing in the Plinko bin that I wanted is not mine to carry alone. This may be something that you need to hear. Factors outside your control are outside your control. "What ifs" may help you navigate in future prospects, and hopefully you do not repeat the same Plinko trajectories. To this point, I have not repeated the same trajectories in different positions. Just no position offered by any Plinko board would have sufficed.

Another hidden gorilla now becomes clearer. Every position that I have had is defined by expertise earned. Always based on work experience. All dictated by the Plinko board. My education and experience across domains was broader than anything possible in the trenches. I was proficient or good at various functions of my job including helping my direct reports strive for what they wanted. On the science front, I would enhance our capabilities for company project support. Bottom line was the career Plinko boards across every organization never offered the ability to control my destiny in landing a position that I wanted.

I could bide my time. My work was still enlarged to leading most of the group, but that was not what I wanted. I wanted to learn modeling and my new boss wanted to lead the modeling group. I never asked for that or implied it.

At the time, maybe I looked at it as a new thing to learn, but it was an opportunity to look at various data from different domains and integrate it into a model for prediction.

This was closer to what I was doing in my PhD work. Not the predictive model part, but the pulling together data from different domains to figure out how an enzyme worked. More importantly design chemical compounds that would bind to that area and prevent the enzyme from doing the reaction.

Managing more people may have led to a promotion to director or a higher title at another company if I moved. That possibility was not enough to quell the desire to learn modeling. I left the company to find a position where I could do that.

Modeling jump started my ability to leave corporate life and start my own thing.

This opportunity would not have happened if I was given the promotion.

The other fallout from this retrospective journey so far is to my original thinking of that Zander presentation at my first employer. You need to have the curiosity and drive to find out if it is the right direction. This is the counting passes in the hidden gorilla video.

The happiness marker is more like a feedback loop interaction that starts to open up your attention from the concentrated phase. I thought that I was just not happy or fulfilled at the time, but it caused me to pull my head out of the sand and look around. Reevaluate my direction or what I was and change.

Pattern recognition is still important in the concentrated attention and broader attention modes.

This new model to this point looks like it is holding up so far.

### Recent Career Path Review

I learned and excelled in modeling. Finally, I could see the engineering training being useful and starting to bring the medicinal chemist back into view. I thought that I finally was on my way, but the company reorganizes and I find myself sent into the world from the capsizing ship in a rowboat.

I used the modeling skills to wrangle up consulting work. I am even using those skills in a start up, but now find myself circling back to the point in my career where I was when I jumped to learn modeling and right after earning my PhD. Something that I am just recognizing about these last 14 years of working.

Now, looking at this cyclical pattern in my work life, I am coming to the conclusion that I am counting passes again.

Maybe my age is finally getting to me or if you beat your head against the wall enough times you want to change methods to stop the headaches. I had thought that I had changed to a new Plinko board at least.

Again, the question that jumped out was is this the right mountain that I was climbing?

Scary thought for someone that should be thinking of just holding on to retirement. Scarier still to be thinking of just holding on to do what you want in retirement.

Why not just cut to the chase and do that now? Really, why do you wait for retirement? We work hard to acquire things and resources to survive and do what we want when we retire.

Ok. Seems like an easy change to do what you want now. Planning for the future becomes harder at least for me. Question then shifts from where you think you want to go to what do you want to do or what makes you fulfilled?

There is a small caveat, that you still like to eat and for me my family also likes to eat. A few more: love to sleep in a bed, escape the elements, deal with new technology like AI, and probably a few others that one can think of.

Nothing really earth shattering except the first version is fairly easy. This path can keep you in an easier to navigate trajectory, but if you were not exactly feeling fulfilled in the previous versions why would that suddenly change?

I did not want to continue looking for the needle in the haystack or winning the lottery of finding the perfect work environment to settle into. I have sampled enough work environments while working and consulting to understand that a perfect work situation has worse odds than winning the Powerball jackpot. For what I want to do, I have to go back to being a square peg trying to fit in round holes.

In this interweaving timeline of corporate life and being on my own, I also started doing other pursuits looking for what I was missing. The list included trying to understand investing, spirituality, sports like tennis and strong man training, and gardening. I am sure that there were other pursuits and I will talk more about these later.

The point was that other factors besides work were tried and they all had an impact on my thinking about myself that I am still working through. It was time to rethink what I wanted to do, why I wanted to do it, and how to do it.

It seems that I have always chased down the path that I mapped of what I thought that I wanted to do. Always postponing the rewards or assuming the rewards happen when I get to where I mapped.

In these last 14 years, I was still doing consulting for pharmaceutical/biotech companies of all sizes. All of my projects arrived by word of mouth which was enough.

I did not feel that I had to advertise for the business and I didn't. No web page. No LinkedIn campaign. I did not work on building that aspect of business. I was looking for other avenues during this time and I still am.

The new part about counting passes is that the process could have two directions. One where you are eagerly heading in the direction for your new base camp along your career or other goals. The other aspect of this mechanism is that counting of the passes moves to your background processing so you continue to keep the lights on while searching. This process now allows one to travel not to a new base camp but to a whole new mountain.

A phrase that I have heard from other spiritual content creators is getting paid to live. The phrase rings like a living wage, but I look at it as if you do what you love to do that is living. This shift is more of no more waiting for what I want to do and how can I align what I love to do and doing it well so that resources come with it.

I no longer want a deferred compensation or a deferred life worth living.

This piece of evidence is circumstantial, but I see how one could say that I have a jaded opinion. I have other friends that have positioned themselves via moving companies. Taken additional courses or degrees to demonstrate and pick up new activities. They have attained senior titles, but in reality they are still trapped by the career Plinko board. They have a senior title, but still just represent a few domains that are relatively grouped together. I could strive for that but it still falls flat for what excites me and you receive more money and of course more stress.

### A Change in My Thinking

This time I needed to look back not to just see how far I have gone, but how in the hell did I get this far off track? Sorry. I am drained, and the reward for what I have been working towards just seems to not be there.

Do not get me wrong.

There were always things about what I was working on that I loved, but these items were the fool's gold. Shiny. Look great, but all the other draining activities tarnished the work experience.

Now, I have refined the happiness pursuit hypothesis and introduced career Plinko. Can this help me going forward?

Recently, I needed to talk myself into doing some new consulting engagements. Worrying about the drain from the interactions and other activities involved besides the thinking and modeling. Basically, I did not want a repeat of the feeling of other projects. I completed the projects but felt more and more drained in the process. When you consult and with my background, I am never just there to present my findings and walk away.

The career Plinko case is still in play. I am consulting so I am bringing my journeyman skills to their problem. The career Plinko board still infringes on possibilities in this interaction and if it grew into more I will still be confined.

With that in mind, I agreed to still take on the projects and help the teams. The friends that recommended me really worked me over to persuade me to help. The honeymoon period was just one week. The fastest time yet for me. I quickly found the meeting dynamics to be problematic and tedious. My happiness marker triggered, yet I still went forward with the projects.

This time though it is more like my time when I was earning my PhD. The consulting engagements are more like the background work allowing me to investigate new ground. Two different counting passes activities allowing me to explore more space.

Funny thing is that I am acting on what I believe is an invisible gorilla right now. You are reading that path now. I am actively pursuing opportunities that I am detecting via the happiness marker. We will see if I am reading the tea leaves correctly.

### Looking Back

I did not recognize it when I wrote my first post, but Zander was describing his experiences as a teacher and his wife as a therapist. Both were guiding others in the methods they described. Both were trying to alter or improve his students or her patients. They could see the results that they were trying to produce. They may have used some of the methods themselves, but the majority of examples that they went over were their observations with his students.

You saw possibilities but from their point of view. You did not see or hear from the point of view of the person going through the process. For everyone else, you need both to be in the moment and recognize it and observe the meaning and possible changes to go towards.

I think that I missed some items or feelings that I was going through at those moments that I believe allowed me the opportunity to see a hidden gorilla at that time in my life.

I went back over my own experience and performed my own self analysis. I was trying to use these results to detect commonalities in finding hidden gorillas and look at what I am currently going through.

I believe that most of us are counting passes throughout our lifetimes. In my personal analysis of my history, adversity or negative feelings came up at every point. The usual advice given is to set up goals and work towards them. Hustle, find new paths, and overcome any obstacles to get there. Maybe the collective is following the wrong advice. Maybe I have been following the wrong advice.

In the process of everyone trying to achieve their goals, how many times have obstacles had to be overcome?

How many irritants arose while working towards goals?

I have had obstacles and irritants while working towards all of my goals to this point including now. I just wonder how often that happens to others. Maybe we all have happiness markers working. We have been trained not to evaluate but to plow through them.

There may be neurobiological evidence supporting the happiness pursuit hypothesis. This is a working hypothesis at this point or just linking the happiness pursuit hypothesis with what is currently believed. The Default Mode Network (DMN), Salience Network (SN) and Central Executive/Frontoparietal Network (CEN, FPN) have in the last 20 years been described with activities linked [\[2\]](#fn2),[\[3\]](#fn3).

The DMN is linked to being engaged when not doing anything externally demanding and includes narrative construction and mental time travel like recollections and projections. The CEN is associated with cognitive control and decision-making. The SN appears to help the transition between DMN and CEN modes.

This is a generality, but this as a model describes missing something due to selective attention while in CEN mode. The curiosity marker would stimulate the CEN which effectively narrows the attention to the action in question.

The SN is potentially activated by the happiness marker that transitions CEN to DMN where the attention is broadened and more general pattern recognition and future projections occur. Pattern recognition and other DMN activities process and SN then transfers to CEN to act or modify the direction.

![Brain network interactions](https://storage.ghost.io/c/60/27/6027ea45-0ce4-4563-a08f-f1411237182d/content/images/2026/09/finding-my-way-diagram-1.png)  
*Brain network interactions*

These neurological networks are not isolated, so one would expect some cross-talk between the networks. More work needs to be done to further substantiate the biological mechanisms.

There is a potential biological mechanism for this searching for fulfillment and what you want to do. In my current situation, I had become a journeyman with respect to my knowledge and education. This realization was becoming clearer to me. I just did not have the vocabulary for it at the time.

Working in career Plinko boards pushed that common tag on me. I have kept that tag as my new story which follows into consulting and any other endeavors that I pursued.

I wanted to try to recall further back to see if I could find myself again. I believe, or am hoping, that this information will help set the path to become a master or grandmaster?

## The Bumbling

For the time from my PhD, what has come to light is that I switched from doing what I wanted to do to playing a game to do it. In that process, I lost that soul calling.

I decided to go back earlier in my life to see if I have to rethink what excites me or is it just a small tweak to what I have done to date. I had tried a few other attempts to modify my approach after being laid off. Still not feeling like I had found it.

![The inner fool](https://storage.ghost.io/c/60/27/6027ea45-0ce4-4563-a08f-f1411237182d/content/images/2026/09/contemporary_editorial_interpretation_of_the_tarot_fool_card__a_thoughtful_lone_wanderer_in_practical_field_clothes_standing_at_the_edge_of_a_sunlit_limestone_bluff__looking_down_into_a_2767644166.png)  
*My inner fool*

### Owning My Inner Fool

When I look back upon my childhood, I would love to say that there was this inner calling or knowing about where I was going in my life. I did not even have any idea of directionally possible paths. I am not sure whether this acknowledgment is sad on my part or if I had too many other activities competing for my attention. I grew up before social media, internet, and Atari came out as a gaming console when I was entering high school. I was just caught up being a kid at that time and having to entertain myself or playing with groups of neighboring kids and relatives.

If I had to choose an overarching theme about my childhood and growing up, the fool card in tarot is the best descriptor. The fool steps out into the world without a map or a plan. Living life in the now.

I would imagine being an astronaut, cowboy, doctor, teacher, and even scientist. Role playing was part of playing and explored through imagination, but not as this is what I wanted to be when I grew up. Just playing. I tried each role and did not commit on any of the roles as a possible career as I grew up.

I grew up in a farming community. There were not a large number of opportunities available, but in high school, I was given the opportunity to study college level mathematics. I excelled in math and in academics overall. There were no college prep courses offered at the high school. I was still able to study materials that were equivalent to the first two semesters in college. I also had one great teacher that was willing to teach the mathematics and navigate allowing this change in the curriculum.

There were different factors that came together for this opportunity to take the advanced math classes. The first factor was having a middle school math teacher that offered you the potential of finishing the class if you worked through the mathematics book and passed all book exercises and tests to prove mastery. When completed, you were done for the year.

I was amazed about that. I was bored anyway and just finished the rest of the chapter ahead of the class. He gave me the test. I passed it and just started the next chapter. I did not really run this past my parents. I just started doing it.

I finished the book and met all requirements. I was expecting an uneventful and well-deserved free time for that hour. I was rewarded with the textbook for the next year's math class. He also taught that class. I was a little disappointed, but started again. I finished next year's material by the end of the year. Really looking forward to having another free hour when I returned from the summer off.

The other factor that I did not realize at the time was that he used me as an example in the other class. This prompted 3 others to start on the same path. They were able to catch up and having 4 students moving forward was easier to justify having the group join the older students in algebra class.

We had finished junior high math classes in a year. I was wondering how things were going to evolve. When I received my class schedule for the 8th grade in the fall, I was quite disappointed that it looked like I was going to repeat the 8th grade math class. First day of school, I arrive at the math class. The teacher asks me to just wait near the front of the room. He takes me to algebra class. Introduces me to the teacher and then I am in the algebra class.

I was happy that it was four of us joining the class. The older students were looking at us. We just found seats and got started. Few times working examples in front of the class on the board and answering questions. Things are alright and now we are accepted. I kept taking the math classes with the class ahead while taking the other courses with my class. Socially it worked out very well. I was able to stay with my friends and still push myself in math classes. Eventually, we were able to get a calculus class in junior year with some other seniors that were interested. For my senior year, I was able to just take advanced calculus class on my own as independent study.

During this time, my parents did see that I was taking these math classes. I do not think that it registered that I was with older students. I did not bring it up or brag about it. They didn't probe. Grades were high. My father was getting his business going and since I was doing well in school. I was not a problem. My father already had enough stresses. The only place where I may have added stress was that I was participating in sports and having to get home from practice and travel for games. I was blessed with friends and making a good impression on their parents. They saved me by bringing me home after games and practices. Eventually, I was able to get my own car and some independence.

Like I said. This part of my life was bumpy, but somehow everything aligned for me to experience life at that time. This felt very much like that tarot fool or gestation mode. For my junior year, finally the guidance counselor started asking me questions about what my plans were. I did not know. He directed me to start looking at universities.

He apologized that we waited this long. He expected that I was already looking at schools and what I wanted to do. Most of my friends were thinking of engineering. I excelled in STEM classes so I started looking at schools with good engineering departments.

I took the ACT and SAT. I just took the two tests and did well enough and was accepted early at a Big Ten University.

I was always playing sports throughout high school, but stopped my senior year. I found employment at a restaurant and worked as much as I could. I was never going to make enough for college, but I had to demonstrate to my father I was serious about going to college.

I was expected to follow my father into his business and not go to college. He did not try to talk me out of going my own way, but my mother let me know that he was hoping that I would be joining the business. I was able to go to college. It was not in the plans, so it was all upon me to find the way. I filed for financial aid. Explained that I was supporting myself through school. The university would not recognize me yet as an independent student, so I worked to cover any deficiencies in financial aid to make it happen.

I think that this was the first curiosity marker coming into some focus where I had to make a real decision. This was hard for me to let my father and family down. The easy part would be to make the family happy, but I needed to take that step.

I was just following what I saw my father do while I was growing up. He constantly was developing skills which allowed him to set up his construction company. I now wanted to follow my own path.

### Finding Me Again

I did not really know what I wanted to go into. Just that I needed to take that step or I would always regret it. I started pursuing degrees in aerospace and mechanical engineering. Things were moving along at the university. I was doing well enough. As I was getting into junior engineering classes, I started to wonder if engineering is what I wanted to do for a long time.

My confidence in engineering as a career path was being shaken. I talked to my adviser about changing my major. He highly suggested waiting until the project course. You get to bring all of your developed skills from your studies.

I was finishing up my degree so I followed that advice. I had to finish a few electives for my degree. I chose an Introduction to Philosophy course. I enjoyed it.

Another course that I took for enjoyment and curiosity was astronomy. I really enjoyed all aspects and I had the chance to observe Saturn by telescope for the class. I did very well in the class. The graduate students were trying to persuade me to think about transitioning to the field.

I loved astronomy and I recently started doing stargazing and astrophotography at home. In college, I just did not see myself becoming an astronomer.

The class that changed my perspective was a self-study course in Biochemistry. I just took it on a whim. I had the prerequisites and took the course over a spring-summer session. The biochemistry class opened my eyes and excited me more than any course in the engineering curriculum.

Looking back here was another instance. I was full tilt trying to finish my engineering degree. My fiancee was pursuing her calling and I was motivated so we could get married and start our lives together. Pushing and then doubt or feeling something off.

This covered two of the previous areas. I did not choose engineering. I was influenced by my peers, so ownership was demonstrated for paying for college. The curriculum was not originally decided by me, so the switch from that choice to something else more aligned with biochemistry was not incredibly difficult. So there is the curiosity portion churning me to be an engineer and then the happiness marker identifying biochemistry.

The engineering classes were challenging, but learning about how nature was working at the cellular levels just amazed me on a different level. I wanted to pursue that direction. I just was not sure yet how to do that or how I could afford that.

The final engineering project course fell flat to me. I had to figure out a way to navigate this new potential. I decided to finish my engineering degree. I dropped mechanical engineering to finish sooner.

My luck again was there or my attention allowed for observing another invisible gorilla. I graduated with an engineering degree during a recession. Finding that first job was difficult and just landing an interview for a position was few and far between. I kept trying and applying for positions. The good thing or bad thing is that you have some more time to think.

In this liminal time after graduating and looking for a first position, another hidden gorilla came into view. I went back to a smaller school where I worked through some basic classes now aimed at chemistry, biochemistry, and biology. I did not need the degree since I already had one. I just needed the background. This move enabled me to land my first job as an intern at a pharmaceutical company. The position was in analytical chemistry. This was not exactly what I was looking for, but it was exactly what I needed.

The internship turned to a part-time position and finally a full-time position. This position allowed me to get married and buy my first house. The position taught me new skills: keeping detailed notes, following protocols, describing, and documenting experiments for regulatory purposes and the corresponding discipline needed. The highlight or most stressful was surviving an FDA audit and my notebook and databook were used as examples.

The FDA probed the samples to see if I could pull the data and format it for what they needed. I am not sure why I was chosen for that audit since there were many more experienced people working in the department. Maybe I would be used as a scapegoat if a problem arose, or the management believed in me. I like the second version but honestly both options probably contributed to the decision. I survived though.

More importantly the position gave me some space to look for what I really wanted to do. Finishing the background coursework and applying to a PhD program. I found one that was closer to what I thought that I wanted and more importantly the program was flexible enough to allow me to start part-time so I could keep working.

This was another hidden gorilla showing up. I was able to find a PhD program where I could learn not just biochemistry but how to probe and understand the mechanisms of diseases. The PhD in Medicinal Chemistry was similar to engineering in my case. Part of selecting the PhD program is also the faculty and what they are working on. I was able to find an advisor where I got to do multiple techniques to try to figure out how a protein catalyzed the reaction it did. Finding out and building the tools also provided hypotheses of potential chemicals that could inhibit the enzyme and hopefully a drug.

I was able to explore while keeping some stability on the family side. My wife was finishing her nursing degree so I wanted to honor that while giving me a path also. We also had our son during this time. We made it work. Hard to believe, but I did not like coffee and rarely drank it until the PhD started. During that time, my wife and I started drinking coffee.

## Commonalities Through Life

Looking over the broad movements of my life to this point, some commonalities start to emerge.

I would start with a challenge.

- In middle school, starting to move faster through the math class.
- In college, switching fields.
- During first position, switching field yet again.
- Earning my PhD and I moved to new departments and physically to new employment to start again.
- In the corporate world, moved to working on my own.
- Now, one more where I am moving fields again and expanded my interests into different domains.

The changes in how I defined myself kept increasing. Each step led to another steeper step.

What did I learn as I progressed through cycles?

# References

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1. Simons, Daniel J. and Chabris, Christopher F. (1999). Gorillas in our midst: sustained inattentional blindness for dynamic events. Perception, 28(9), 1059-1074\. [↩︎](#fnref1)
2. Sridharan, D., Levitin, D. J., & Menon, V. (2008). A critical role for the right fronto-insular cortex in switching between central-executive and default-mode networks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105(34), 12569-12574\. [↩︎](#fnref2)
3. Menon, V. (2011). Large-scale brain networks and psychopathology: a unifying triple network model. Trends in cognitive sciences, 15(10), 483-506\. [↩︎](#fnref3)