It starts innocently.

You rename a batch of files with a ten-line Python script, or you alias a common git command to shave off two keystrokes. Maybe you build a small shell function to format JSON from the clipboard.

You’re not even trying to be clever. You’re just solving tiny problems. Making the machine do what it should have done in the first place. And then something happens. You cross a threshold. You look at your tools, your environment, your operating system—even your editor—and suddenly everything is fair game.

You could rebuild that (if you wanted to). You could improve that (if you wanted to).

Like Camus’ Sisyphus, we are condemned to push the boulder of our own systems uphill—one fix, one refactor, one script at a time. But unlike the story of Sisyphus, the curse is not placed onto you by some god. We built the boulder ourselves. And we keep polishing it on the way up.

I’ve lost count of how many projects I have started that began with some variation of “Yeah, I could build this but better.”

I believe sometimes building things is how we self-soothe. We write a new tool or a script because we are in a desperate need for a small victory. We write a new tool because we are overwhelmed. Refactor it, not because the code is messy, but your life is. We chase the perfect system because it gives us something to hold onto when everything else is spinning. This is the lesson I’ve taken from using NixOS.

What if the real skill isn’t technical mastery? Or better yet what if it’s emotional clarity?

• Knowing which problems are worth your energy.
• Knowing which projects are worth maintaining.
• Knowing when you’re building to help—and when you’re building to cope.
• Knowing when to stop.

This is what I’m trying to learn now. After the excitement. After the obsession. After the burnout. I’m trying to let things stay a little broken. Because I’ve realized I don’t want to fix everything. I just want to feel OK in a world that often isn’t. I can fix something, but not everything.