Particles, not strings ... when to be certain and when not to

After two days worth of particle physics back in 9th grade I started to dream the particles must be long strings. How could they otherwise interfere like they did?
But my physics teacher told me I was dead wrong, it's particles stupid.
She used to work smashing particles in an accelerator.
There you go.
Two years later I read an article about string theory.
When you don't know exactly, which is all the time, then don't be so damn sure.

I have absolutely no belief in the particle view, or strings, or branes, only in space.
Messed up space behaving like all of the above.
At the beginning a big void, void of everything, but nobody's perfect. The smallest fluctuations causing chaos. (No it doesn't compute, energy out of nothing, bah).
Dreaming again.

What?

What do you do when you feel like you're going nowhere, of sorts?
It's all in place, family, friends, hobbies, cars, toys, work, but something is still missing.
Am I wasting my time doing meaningless things?

Obviously I have no idea what I'm doing.