Art is a way of asking the questions that society is afraid to ask.
Persistence is just as important as intelligence in research.
I'm not a feminist. I hail men, I love men. I celebrate American male culture, and beer, and bars and muscle cars...
Read, read, read. Read everything — trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it. Then write. If it's good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out of the window.
NP-completeness is not just a theoretical curiosity; it has profound implications for practical computing.