who only by moving can balance

Expanded on for swaldman. I'd kinda hoped I'd feel like expanding on it in actual words, but I appear to be pushing myself a bit too hard for that at the moment, so you get this (though by all means ask me questions in comments, because that lets me have the social interaction without the inventiveness.)

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The short version is: I don't give a shit about the human impact of my research. Not even a tiny one. I full-stop do not care. I mean, I think oil and mining are unethical so I'm not willing to do them, but that's more out of concern for my mountains that it is out of feeling for my fellow man. I did climate science only reluctantly because so much of it is focussed on people; my uncle, who visited the place before it had to be evacuated due to volcanism, is gently horrified by my attitude to Montserrat.

Whereas in my activism I care very, very little about the long game of trying to tear down our societal structure as a whole and rebuilding in the mould of something better. Not interested; not the place I think my energy is best spent; not the work I am best placed to do. I'm not going to object to other people doing it, but what I want to do is - to the best of my ability - help this person, right here, right now.

I'd got as far as "I consider science a hobby", but Housemate pointed out that the activist work I do is fundamentally about trying to Make The World A Better Place, where people can live more fulfilled and less fear-filled lives; and that science is something I personally find fulfilling without any human element. It makes an awful lot of sense to me that I'm so reluctant to drag "helping people" into the thing I do for fun, given that it's what I spend a lot of my "leisure" time on...