I read Steven's post the other day, and I felt jealous, impressed and if I had a hat, I would have taken it off.

Down the ergonomic keyboard rabbit hole
Over the past few months I’ve had an ergonomic keyboard obsession. It started out simple, just wanting to improve my typing experience. It ended with me writing a driver. This is my story - now available as an audiobook!
Steven WatermanScott Logic

Steven starts off with:

"This post is all about my recent obsession with ergonomic keyboards. There are technical elements to it, but mostly I’m just gonna tell you a story about my slow descent into madness."

It's essentially a really long, well written and detailed article on Steven's exploration around ergonomic keyboards and everything that goes into that.

He undersells it quite a lot, because he had to re-learn how to type at least two times, and not just ordinary typing, but all the symbols and odd things required for programming. A part of all that was writing a hardware driver for his keyboard to make it behave exactly the way he wanted.

When is the last time something captured your attention, imagination and most tellingly - your time, that you would gradually chip away at it for months at a time? Not for any direct financial benefit, but just because you wanted to.

That is what captured my attention. I have a passing interest in ergonomics, having wrist and other issues due to my occupation, but what I'm really interested in is observing and learning how people capture and act on something they are passionate about.

How does something move past something that captures their attention on a video for 2 minutes, to something they buy a book on or listen to some pod casts, to something that they love so much to invest large amounts of time in.

I ask that of myself quite frequently. It's likely not something one is supposed to admit - but I can't remember the last time I felt that way about anything, with the exception of my children.

I don't have a solution, and I'm actively searching for one. Is it luck? A chance meeting of something I'm interested in and the opportunity to learn it? Is it just something one needs to me methodical about, internationally exploring the search space of all things hobby? Does it follow naturally after tackling mental health or other big issues in life.

I am very much looking forward to discovering those answers.

If you have found something you are passionate about and you are pursing it - I would love to hear about it. Email me on phil@bitplex.com.au.