Friends of mine in neuroscience, who do electrophysiology, love the instantaneous gratification of it: patch onto a cell. Watch/listen to it fire. Treat it

Friends of mine in neuroscience, who do electrophysiology, love the instantaneous gratification of it: patch onto a cell. Watch/listen to it fire. Treat it with chemicals. Treat the cells innervating it with chemicals. Make them fire with external electrodes. Etc. Do this multiple times, over a period of months/years, until you have dissected some local circuitry properties. Pretty cool, if you get off on listening to neurons fire, day in and day out. I think the key in science is to do something that is interesting and pleasurable in both the long and short term. My electrophysiologist friends like it day-to-day, and also like the long term agenda of it. Sounds like you liked the long-term agenda of biochemistry, but not the day-to-day. Probably similar lessons apply to hacking. For me, I got out of it: I didn't like how I felt after looking at a glowing monitor for 12+ hours a day, week after week. I like programming this intensively when I feel like it, but not when I'm pressured to do so for some business goal.