Maybe the thrill went away

As soon as I published my previous post, I gave it another read and by the end, the idea for this one came to be.

Sometimes people don’t try shiny new things just because you care about some specific feature, or even because it’s actually fun at all. Sometimes you just want that feeling again. The first time you try a new pair of glasses and you see the world isn’t blurry anymore. The first time you turned on a brand new device and saw how smooth the screen was. The first time you created an account for that upcoming social media platform revolutionizing the way you interact with others.

That feeling of always being on the vanguard, using the latest and greatest.

I know for sure that I fall for this in some aspects, I always enjoy testing beta apps on my phone, I’ve started to pre-order games and merchandising more often, I’ll definitely buy that upcoming Lego Game Boy as soon as it shows up—I can only avoid consumerism for so long.

I even use Arch on my laptop, for crying out loud.

I end up obsessed with trying the one thing everyone keeps talking about, and realize after a while, that it’s not that different from what was before, that it doesn’t spark the same wonder that [insert other previous thing here] did the first time. The smell of the brand new book wore off, and it’s not coming back.

Writing this reminds me of Jack Baty’s thoughts about what else does he have to say after more than two decades blogging. And after I checked that post again, I realized he also wrote some similar thoughts on his 25th blogging anniversary, which was a sobering outlook on his blogging journey.

That post is more about writing and blogging, and my previous post referred to tools and software. But I guess this applies to everything in between.

I don’t think us humans have ever experienced so many new inventions in such a short time frame since we started wandering on this planet.

However, the same goes for the amount of rehashing of products, concepts and ideas that aren’t really very different from what was already there.

There’s nothing new under the sun.

If you haven’t checked Axxuy’s blog, many of his recent posts have been about typewriters and fountain pens. Going analog seems to be making a comeback in recent years, at least among some of the people and friends on my online circles. But I it’s something that has always been out there.

Something cool that I see from the people invested into these “old school” methods, is that they recognize it’s all about doing what works, seeing them as a tool and not as some revolutionary discovery, it’s just going back to basics and sharing how it works for them.

An equivalent to the “techbro” archetype doesn’t seem to be that common, although I guess there are those who just get into it to be part of some trend, or to belong. That’s not always bad though.

I like to think that good people just living life are the norm, that’s probably true even in more mainstream communities, but the bigger they get, the amount of people thinking they’re better and belittling others, grows accordingly. Niches seem to be more shielded from this issue, which is nice.

Of course, anything that can be sold will be, even those trying to look at the past can get targeted. Dumb phones worth 800 dollars and overpriced typewriter-style gadgets with subpar features. It’s a little much for me, but I still sympathize with the ideas.

Funny coincidence, today is my 4th month running Arch Linux on my computer, and after the first couple of weeks setting things up, I have been using it in pretty much the same way as I was using my previous Linux install. There have been some issues here and there, but nothing I’ve been unable to fix, and I think I’ll keep using my setup for many more years, until I get a new device or some outside force makes me.

Most of my dotfiles have barely changed, just correcting a directory paths in scripts, or changing some parameter because a program got updated. Changes made simply to keep things working as they are.

Yesterday I said that most significant changes I do, are when a program/tool/thing is going in a direction I dislike—but I must confess that’s not always a big deal for me anymore.

I went to Zen Browser for a while because of Mozilla’s behavior, I absolutely loved my time with it. But I returned to Firefox again, just because it still works well for me—and also Activity Watch didn’t work on Zen for some reason. I just don’t care anymore about Firefox’s management decisions, I’ll just keep using it, unless they replace the search bar with an AI chat prompt or something hedious like that. I still have Zen installed though and I check it sometimes, it seems to be going well from what I’ve seen recently. But it’s just a tool, not something I actively use. There goes another confession of mine.

Well, this post kind of went all over the place, it’s almost like the title is way too open-ended. I don’t know if I am referring to writing or software or the back and forth of trends. I guess I could have split it into separate articles, in a different reality.

In the end, maybe I’m just lazy, too lazy to switch from Jekyll, too lazy to try a different browser, too lazy to disturb how my current setup is working. I am very good at procrastination after all.

But I’m also good at switching things up when I feel like it, I still haven’t made my /changelog page but this month has seen quite a lot of improvements to this site’s structure, I decided to change my font family to something monospace, and I’ve even made more buttons, updated pages, and all of that.

I’m simply focusing on other things, on other changes, maybe it’s just my hobby cycle spinning around yet again.

Maybe the thrill keeps going, it’s just triggered by different things at this time.

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