self discovery

When I was a kid in the 1980s, it was quite common for “My friends” books to make their rounds on the schoolyard. These books consisted of two page questionnaires for your buddies to fill out so you could remember them all. One of the more common questions was “What are your hobbies” and I can’t remember when I started putting “learning” in there but I sure did. Rather early in my life I noticed that learning new things was a lot of fun for me! Reading up on things in my parents’ lexicon collection, trying my hand at various forms of crafting and getting better at them, and of course also learning everything I could about all the technology all around me felt amazing1. And that never stopped, rather the opposite: Nothing gives me more dopamine these days than going down a shiny new rabbit hole, absorbing new knowledge like a sponge does water, and then putting it to use right away to work towards acquiring a new skill or solving a problem. Lifelong learning, broadening my understanding of the world and acquiring new skills to then use to make or do something myself2 are a huge part of who I am. ...

I’ve been having knee issues all my life. I can’t remember a time when the occasional pain, stiffness and crunchy noises in both knees weren’t part of my regular experience. The past three years however the left knee got a ton worse, frequently hurting for days on end, getting hot, and overall just being a literal pain. That is why earlier this year I finally decided, enough is enough, got another opinion from my orthopedist and we scheduled a key hole surgery to fix what was suspected to be a very active plica syndrome. This surgery happened on September 20th and it made me learn a LOT about myself. ...