2021/10/14

8

I love simple tools.

Reflecting on some of what I talked about yesterday, I realized something else about myself. While friction and resistance can be crippling, having too much freedom can be just as bad. I notice this particularly with tooling I use often. Bells and whistles do a great job of distracting me, and I will sink a disproportionate amount of time into something that is practically insignificant.

I think this part of my personality is what drew me to Linux. The opportunity for endless customization and control was exciting and pulled me in. I have spent countless hours customizing different dotfiles and settings, a lot of which I use less than once a month. While this is great educational value in this level of curiosity, it does sometimes get in the way.

I've found that by focusing on a small set of simple and extendable tools, I can get myself to focus on the problems I am trying to solve much easier. Now that I am familiar with these tools, I can use, tweak, update, and fix them without worry and (largely) without distraction. There are fewer moving parts, no batteries to charge, no oil to change: just a hammer to swing at a problem. While I understand and still feel the allure of cool screenshots and retro programs, I find I enjoy using a computer more by keeping it simple.