[7] Is autonomous working completely out-of-date now ?

Sorry, is autonomous working completely out-of-date now ?

I am feeling more and more like an ego-centric oddball in this social networking society. Everybody is only connecting to other people all the time. Communication seems to be the solution to all problems.

I wonder: Who is doing the actual work ?

In my scientific education as a theoretical physicist, I was trained to do things by my own.

If I need some new methods not yet in my repertoire, I first absorb the knowledge to the point that I can freely use it and adapt it to my special problems. I do this by looking up suitable papers in the web, not by asking specialists.

If I encounter a problem in a project, I am thinking hard, for days and weeks if neccessary (OK, I admit that in such a period an arbitrary remark of another person can sometimes trigger helpful new thoughts. But first I think myself).

My whole motivation of doing theoretical physics is the JOY this work brings to me. I love thinking. I love solving problems in my own way.

Therefore I am deeply disapppointed each time I find that another person has already solved a problem similar to mine. Modern networkers, in contrast, would be happy in such a case because somebody has already solved the problem for them.

Is something wrong with me ?

It is not that I am completely anti-social. For example, I enjoy very much to play in my Jazz band, and this is a very intense form of direct collaboration with the co-musicians.

Comparing the creation of music with the creation of mathematical models, the latter process seems to correspond best to autonomous composing, not collective improvising. In my opinion, a musical composition should have a coherent mood and style. How could this monolithic quality ever be achieved in a collaborative creation process ?