Been thinking a lot about what I want to do career-wise, but I seem to have mis-communicated it as I've been piecing it together. Mostly just a matter of changing ideas and people getting it as I think about it and try to balance it with practical questions of income and lead-times...

Here's my current thoughts, still somewhat half-finished, but moving in the direction I want to pursue...

I want to help people understand other people.

While I don't mind if the task involves technical stuff in some way, I'm not really looking to be doing technical stuff as the focus of my work. While I'm reasonably good at tech, it's not my strength.

I want to help people.

I want to believe in what I'm doing, to believe there's some real value for the world in accomplishing the task at hand. Making money is good, but I want to do something useful.

I want to think for people.

In the end, what I'm reasonably good at is thought. Particularly systemic thought, perceiving patterns in complex environments, teasing out stories that let people understand what is going on and how they can change what they are doing to alter those patterns. While I encourage people to think for themselves, there seems to be certain types of things that I'm good at thinking about and that people may find valuable.

I want to elucidate the nature of human perception and thought.

Perhaps the most complex pattern out there, and full circle on the set of things I want. I want to help people understand their own minds and the minds of others. I want to make that understanding a part of the process of solving problems, particularly problems in design and design theory.