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The blissful Zen of a good side project

One of life's greatest simple pleasures is creating something just for yourself.

I’ve spent pretty much every night in recent memory burning through video games, and I finally, inevitably, hit the wall with that approach. And though I’m not sure the core idea really works, or is anything special, simply allowing myself to explore it felt like being able to finally take a deep breath after a long time underwater. Last summer, my wife and I built new steps to our patio door, and even though that was well beyond both my range of experience and the typical definition of creativity, I found the work more engaging and compelling than anything else I had going on at the time.

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