Overactive dopamine system. A blessing and a curse. Excited about hard problems. Persistent. Thinking deeply. But hard to switch off. The rush of progress comes with a come down. Instability, when excited and successful. How else could someone do this? Less dopamine means the problem wouldn’t get solved. It’s like I’m selling my soul for this. Ha.

Thinking hard means being tired a lot. Being obsessed with an interesting problem means that thinking hard is almost involuntary. Being obsessed is the only way to solve it, but I’m not obsessed because I want to solve it. I’m obsessed because it’s interesting, and my dopamine system has latched onto it. Do I have a choice?

The closer to a solution, the more exciting, the easier it is to lose balance on a whim.