When I was a kid I always liked going on Scout camps. I think what I liked specifically was:
- It meant spending an extended period of time (whole days, with little break) in the same collective of 20+ people.
- I would drift between the various groups there, and would get to know everyone.
- The collective would experience new situations every few hours, or even just being bored together when ‘nothing’ was happening (when waiting for stuff etc.).
- (Possibly also the fact that there was an authority above us and we didn’t decide things for ourselves…?)
What I liked was how there was a strong feeling of community because we were all experiencing the same thing together. Being around people meant my mind was continuously in the present. For these reasons I feel that this is the environment I thrive in the most.
Unfortunately this would only ever happen once or twice a year, and since I am 20 I wanted to ask if anyone can think of any job descriptions where this happens.
The first thing I thought of is working on a submarine but I was hoping for something a bit less radical. I thought this might be the experience in university dorms but it turns out that in my country dorms are pretty dead because with the exception of cooking, people stay in their rooms.
Small team vibes with a lot of downtime and always doing something new? This is probably not what you had in mind, but have you considered research in a university? Graduate school, basically. Academia research is basically exactly what you described, but the downside is, well, you have to be a graduate student. It’s not for everyone, but if you’re able to weather the suffering that comes from being a grad student, I think you’ll find that the vibe is exactly what you described.