Why I Prefer Science & Engineering To Music

I've always loved music. I've played the guitar & piano since the age of around 12, I've created mixes and songs, have my own soundcloud etc. But there's something that really bums me out about music. Scares me about being a musical artist, even...

 It's so contemporary.  I can't deal with the idea that 99.999% of musical artists are only big inside their own spheres, or big names around the world, but only for a few years. Only a few choice names can be remembered. The Beetles. Led Zep. Mozart. I wonder who these names will be for this generation? (Please, history books, don't let Beiber represent our generation). After that, everything the 99.999% ever worked towards gets buried underneath the sands of time. No one will have known they even exist, there will be no reason to try to uncover them. There are so many great artists that I know people won't have heard of in twenty/thirty years time. Won't know they exist, and will never know. Submotion Orchestra. Wolfgang Gartner. Chiodos. Panic At The Disco. I just can't work in an area that has such a fallible final product. There's something about it that really scares me. Perhaps it makes me all too aware of my mortality. Of my scale. I am just a tiny drop in a limitless ocean. Perhaps I have yet to come to terms with my scale. Because what is an ocean, if not a multitude of tiny drops?

In contrast to music, science and engineering works from a series of platforms. "If I can see further than others, it is only because I stand on the shoulders of giants". The progress made within science today is made build from the foundation created by Newton, Einstein, Tesla, Feynmann. In this way, scientists are immortal. Every piece of work is coherently woven into the great tapestry of scientific knowledge. Even the areas on the fringes - these are peer reviewed, are deemed good papers or not, and then act as sense-checks for each other. After that, they act as supporting documents that always lead back to the middle. Everything works with each other. In this way, even the weaker scientists contribute and become immortal in their quiet, unassuming way. And this reassures me in some wierd way. There'll be some part of me left when I'm gone. I'll exist through the value I've created. And that value will always be relevant, because it will always act as a foundation.

Perhaps I'm looking too short-term. In a few billions of years, chances of humanity still existing is slim. Which means that everything we've worked together to achieve, all of our knowledge, will be lost. Like the £5 I dropped whilst drunkenly ordering a double vodka coke I shouldn't have last weekend. Faced with a realisation of such insignificance with everything we do, maybe I should just stop worrying and do what I enjoy doing in this moment.