Some call it yak shearing.  

Some call it the next step, and a method to never let the next step get in your way.

…So I then I learned to make custom blown vacuum tubes at home so I could build an amazing artisanal nixie tube clock.

…So I then looked up how to throw a bigger flower pot using wheel-thrown pottery techniques on youtube, so I could become a better and more refined artist.

…So I am building a CNC mill so I can make nice looking wood headphone cups for the DIY planar build.

 

Occasionally, I find myself looking into space and feeling like whatever the next steps may be in my various hobbies are remain unreachable, need to wait, cost more than I have, or is in someway not the right time to continue.  While some of these may be true, it does not mean all that remains is slow, unyielding time.  More often than not in these situations, I really am looking at a step that is unreachable or untimely, but is actually not the end-all and last step.   There is usually more than meets the eye; there are tasks to be done, as small as they might be, that will help a process along.  I think of this mathematician:

For example- I do not have access to all the tools I need to complete my projects; it is inherently exciting to think about the actual fabrication of evolving ideas.  That does not mean the tools needed to complete the projects are needed to do the peripheral learning and knowledge-gaining and scheming and planning.  We can easily see in writing, the cutting and buffing and bolting of things is just a tiny part of a huge commitment in time, learning, and design.  Have I exhausted all learning and designing time?  No!  I can always add an extra step between me and a goal, no matter how small.  Learn  Autodesk Fusion 360?   add that to the list.  Complete a few of their 10 hour instructional webinars?  That sounds important.  Learn to roughly mill and glue wood into end-grain orientations for future CNC-ing for the future headphone cup-rings?  I should do that too.

So…

…Is your back hurting from your posture or your chair?  If so, you should learn better posture and/or build a perfect chair (and learn fine wood luthiery to make a snazzy inlay of your name, Blender and CAM to mill unique chair legs, etc, etc….)

🙂