The Analysis Of Coffee

I have a very analytical mind. I can't really get around that part of me. I think a lot about what I'm doing.

I'm reading James Miller's Examined Lives: From Socrates to Nietzsche. A really interesting book so far. Very readable. Very interesting. Very relevant to my current questions.

He quotes Nietzsche saying something about how we always remain strangers to ourselves. And in some ways I still think of myself like that. I still don't really understand myself or my actions. And I'm not sure if I need to. Or if I ever will.

But my analytical mind seems to be a disposition that I just have. I don't know what caused it. And I can think about it or try to pin down the cause of it. But I don't know that I want to.

Especially not right now.

But one part of my life that I find myself analytically engaged with is coffee. I make coffee to pay the bills. And honestly I really enjoy it. I think coffee is a delicious drink. And I think the process of making it is fascinating, both at the base level of its brewing (ground beans, water, and milk interacting), and at the experiential level of crafting it.

I don't know what it is. But I love to think about coffee in terms of taste, even though my palette isn't that strong. And I love to think about latte art. That whole process is super fun and interesting. I think about the different components that go into a good latte and good latte art. And even identifying all those factors I still don't understand. I don't know what it is that makes for good latte art.

I find it funny to be so engaged with coffee making. Because I don't want to do it forever. It is just something I do for the money. I need to make money. And I've been doing it this way.

But I wonder how my mind would react to a different kind of work environment. I think I would become analytically engaged in whatever I was doing. And maybe I could manage to do something that was more interesting or important to me.

A writing or editing job.

I'm curious.

I wonder about my mind and what I should do with it. I still write and think about all kinds of things outside of work (and at work). But I also spend a lot of time at work thinking about the process of making coffee. Enjoying it and wondering how to do it better.

I wonder how my mind would do if my work was to think about something totally different.