🔗 When a Tool Becomes a Hobby
Joel talks about how tools can quietly turn into hobbies. What starts as a practical purchase becomes something to collect, tweak, and obsess over. He uses watches, razors, and pens as examples of how function often gives way to fascination, until owning just one no longer feels like enough.
As a fellow watch nerd, I can relate with Joel here. Like Joel, I’m also the proud user of a safety razor, and have been for a couple years now.
Unfortunately, unlike Joel, I can’t be a fountain pen user as I’m left-handed. As any fellow leftie knows, it’s nigh on impossible for us to use a fountain pen, as our hand smudges the wet ink. So I have to stick with a (rather nice) Waterman ballpoint pen, but it works well enough for me.
All that being said, I agree with Joel - it’s very easy for a tool to become a hobby…or maybe it’s some kind of neurodiversity that we all share. Either way, it’s fun.