I recently started learning hand tool woodworking and won’t shut up about it haha. I found a few books and channels that are helpful and feel real. The more I do it, the more it’s apparent to me that many things around me are just distractions. It’s really nice to unplug from everything and make some things or practice using/sharpening my tools. Those little moments when something clicks feel weirdly fulfilling.
What do you all enjoy doing? Have you found any new passions? What do you like about it?
I like adapting after finding out I made a mistake or contradiction
it’s still a bit painful/cringy when I realize I fucked up but it’s slowly becoming like a cathartic powerwashing routine when I can get rid of some personal bad habits/traits
I’m the same way. It’s led me to one of my “sayings”,
Whatever you do, do it spectacularly. If you gotta fail, fail spectacularly.
The worst results I can get are ambiguous ones, then I have to go over every piece of input and test them individually - it’s almost easier to just abandon the question and come up with a new one.
For maybe the last decade, the last 5 years at least, my new years resolution has always been the same. Stop getting in my own way.
Ive held a stance, with myself and with other people, for as long as I can remember, that “No is always an ok answer.” This is pertinent because it keeps me fluid in my planning and taught me to table any emotional attachment and wait until I have the thing to feel the thing. The deftness of my ability to plan shouldn’t be hoisted onto other people’s shoulders to bear, that’s MY responsibility, so if I’m asking favors, no is ok. I’m fact finding, not emotionally blackmailing or leveraging. I’ll call someone back as a last resort a burn a favor, but it’s gotta be life or death. If it’s a blown engine, I’ll just pay for a tow, y’know, but I got buddies with trucks and tow rope.
That can be further refined to, Don’t Stress Over the Imaginary. Stress is essentially double overtime, burning your life force at 200+%. Does stressing over paying your phone bill get you a discount on that bill? No? Then why spend currency that they aren’t accepting? (That being said, never extend real feelings to an artificial entity, real relationships require reciprocity). Is the stressing helping you find a solution faster? Really? REALLY?! I didn’t think so. You don’t need to punish yourself more than a “oh, this and this didn’t work, noted, avoid in the future.” No one and nothing benefits by a self imposed penence, you’re just wallowing. Really. Stop wasting time. That’s right, i said the thing we all know but don’t even admit to ourselves. A great man, a better man than we, once said, “Life is short, we must hurry” and I’m inclined to believe him.
Things, ALL things, will be done when they are done. That statement is at once both as direct and as vague as you want it to be. And it’s been that way for all time. Always. Just like we will never know the end of Pi, or simultaneously witness the ends of the superposition of an atom, life is just “fuzzy.” You’re welcome to scream about that into the void if you want, if you need more ways to come at the absurdity if it all. But again, things will be done when they are done. Putting an artificial time limit on it won’t change that. Getting upset over trivial missed deadlines is you getting upset about something that was never real in the first place. That is literally you getting in your own way. Spending currency that they aren’t taking.
As such, if I find out or am shown I’m wrong in any way, I acquiesce and admit. I’m not perfect, that’d be boring anyways, and doubling down on error just makes you look so soooo much worse than saying “ah shit, I didn’t realize, my bad, fucking thanks mate.” I lose NOTHING in the exchange. Nothing that I’d want to keep anyways. The truth has got to be holier than personal attachment, otherwise there is no objective reality, and therefore no way for us to ever truly be seen or known, or understood. Which I’m convinced is what we all ultimately want. Acknowledgement, understanding and vindication.
The only failure is the failure to learn the lesson.
The grace to live this seems so rare in people it’s like a super power.
“Mistakes teach you more than success” was something I heard and put almost no stock in for quite some time, but I really do believe it’s true. When something fails you can observe the results or catch the problem in real time and determine what’s gone wrong and make adjustments; when something succeeds without failures or breakdowns it’s difficult to know if it’s what you did that caused success, or if it was other factors outside of your control or measures. It can take a while to learn how to be open and accepting of those opportunities.
There was a teacher who said “it’s only a failure if you haven’t learned from it” and I might not have taken it to heart if she hadn’t also told me “it’s better to be a smartass than a dumbass”. These days I’m very glad to have figured out how to handle what I haven’t figured out yet.
A friend of mine’s father likes to say “Sadness and regret when we make mistakes is our brain’s way of making sure the lesson sticks. The worse you feel, the more important it is to grow from it.” It’s helped me to frame my negative reactions with positive meaning and see them as another tool for personal growth, and I hope it does something similar for you.