The future looks super weird right now, and as I’m in the midst of a minor identity crisis, the future is looking more daunting for tinkering.

The events that I was trying hard to plan for, managing finances, wedding, friends, family, staying active, being healthy, reading, I’ve focused on building very explicit internal and external tools to handle.

I really enjoyed building these tools and systems. I liked the process of thinking about them and the slow start, the progression and the use, and the new use cases, and the time allotment to them.

That’s no longer really a thing.

If the goal is to want a thing to exist so that you can use it. Then I think it’s a pretty easy argument to make that the most important part is that that thing actually exists.

Right?

Not for me.

I didn’t realize how much joy and how much of my identity was wrapped into the process of thinking about something and working on it and seeing its progress.

So much to the point that “Finishing” a project means so much less to me than putting in the care and effort into one. The manual iterations; the bugs; the hard thinking.

Skills/hobbies are a different animal in my opinion, since there are plenty of acknowledgeable stopping points when you learn a skill.

Mastering 3 ball juggling, was enough for me; I spent a little time attempting 4, but didn’t consistently have it and stopped there. 3 Ball was enough. I can pick simple door locks. I can do a fair amount of latte art, but big hearts are sometimes still hard for some reason. I’m okay with that.

Physical component projects are also extremely satisfying. I think I’m probably just going to have to start getting more into robotics and soldering and custom configurations to scratch the itch that software projects used to satisfy for me.

Cuz software projects are forever different.

I’m sure others realized this about me. My list of project ideas is too long; and the list of those i’ve started is a fraction of that; the ones I’ve made meaningful progress on even fewer; and the number that I’ve ‘completed’? lol

Idk - It just doesn’t feel satisfying. I can point claude at my projects folder, at any within it. And it executes it very well. All these old software ideas; done. Just like that.

I know I came up with the idea; And provided guidance, maybe demonstrated some tools or provided more in depth examples, but it just feels really shallow?

Is this what a CEO, or a board member feels like? It’s effectively the same right? Maybe just the turnaround time is different. I’m sure a lot of people get a lot of pride in doing that sort of work, but it just feels so strange or disingenuous to say that I built it, but how is this not exactly what a c-level suite, or a director does.

I just feel myself getting less creative and intelligent while using these tools. I know there’s data and dozens of studies that shows those results as well. Might be the first time that academics have had the opportunity to peer deeply into a cult that doesn’t appreciate that sort of attention.