#+date:        [2026-02-07 Sat 17:46:00]
#+title:       IndieWeb Carnival: Intersecting Interests
#+description: Contrasting my passion for technology with my interest in natural hobbies.
#+slug: indiweb-carnival-2026-02-intersecting-interests
#+filetags:    :personal:web:

I thought about this topic for a long time today before starting to write this
post, as I don't think of myself as someone with intersecting interests. I
generally lean pretty hard into interests and in my mind, they're all
technology-related.

However, I've settled on the following topic: *The Minimalist Technologist*.

* Personal Life

In my personal life, I spend my leisure time doing a few primary things:

1. *Technology*: Obviously. I love to learn about new things online, blogging,
   programming, self-hosting,
2. *Physical Work*: Conversely, my next favorite things to do are all completely
   technology free. This includes things like yard work, woodworking,
   organizing, decluttering, etc. There's just something about zoning out,
   getting into a physical rhythm, and feeling your body's strength create
   something productive instead of your mind.
3. *Sports*: This is fairly generic, but sometimes it can be a contrast for those
   who work in tech. Especially if you consider disc golf and/or hiking in this
   category.

* Work

Now, this may be where I differ even more so than in my personal life. While I
work in a tech job, I do not actually spend my days deep inside code (when
possible) or building as many internal tools as I used to.

Instead, my job has primarily become 50 to 60 hours per week of meetings,
mentoring younger coworkers, teaching and leading trainings, thinking about
overall strategy of our practice, and project managing.

It's the generic individual contributor (IC) to manager story line, but again,
it frees me up to switch to a different mindset when I get home and be
productive on hobby projects. I'm no longer burnt out from thinking on such a
technical level all day.

Either way, it was interesting to think through this topic and has me thinking
more about broadening my horizons.