One thing I have to admit about myself in life is I can sometimes "overdo it." In particular when I get into a new obsession I usually go well beyond what is practical at the time and I wind up with what I call "excess capacity." Sometimes- oftentimes- this capacity is just wasted when I move onto the next thing. Sometimes the part I overdo keeps the entire thing sustainable as an obsessions moves into just being a part of my life. And sometimes an almost magic effect happens where the excesses of a previous era jump start a future one.
Usually this more often happens in my tech hobbies. A wifi card I bought a decade ago to try and make a machine works better didn't help then, but in the modern age is the piece that helps keep a mobo modern for example. That seems to happen all the time, mostly because I am resourceful and I keep a pretty good mental inventory of my tech stack.
But recently its been happening outside of technology, with fun consequences. The big example is camping- I bought a tent the day I moved out of Lindsey's house in 2024 after I had bought most of everything else essential I needed to setup my house previously because the tent was on sale. I had not gone camping in decades but I felt inspired by the deal and I saw it as a defiant act as camping in a tent was kinda impossible in my previous life. That tent has now been camped in over a dozen times and is the cornerstone of how I have been able to go camping so much since then. The excess of one era lead into the start of another.
A second clear example of this phenomenon has been with me and Finn scootering. Originally I bought him a nice Segway scooter for his 6th birthday but he was too small to use it then. Instead of returning it I just put it to the side. Then once I got a great deal on a scooter for myself this year I dusted off his and we have ridden almost every day since. A backpack I bought earlier this year for hiking felt like excess the moment I got it- I wasn't hiking so much that I needed a specific backpack for it and I knew deep down I more got it at the time to not let a good coupon expire unused. But that hiking backpack is absolutely perfect to have as a backpack while scootering, which is super useful because otherwise we don't have an easy way to take water bottles or snacks with us when we go. That excess is paying off today.
When something like this happens it gives me hope that previous excesses still can have a big payoff- like the hope that they inflatable kayak I got over a year ago that I still haven't even blown up yet hits the water this summer. Or all the effort I put into turning my car into a camper, hopefully that empowers a fun summer trip that couldn't happen otherwise. Or even better maybe a piece of excess I don't even think about today drives some future hobby in a way that would have been hard without it.
When this happens it feels good partially because it justifies those excesses, the moments when I feel guilty about being me. But it also feels good because it makes life feel like it has a narrative, like I am heading in a direction after years of what felt like dead ends and rudderless directions.
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