I’ve taken to taking weekends ‘off’ to a degree, which is likely a bit odd for many people who read this since the majority of people already do that, and have done it for some time.

Growing up, these days were days when I worked one way or another. Family businesses, and some companies I worked for, were service businesses to service businesses, where being on call 24/7 wasn’t a job, it was just life. So, even if I worked for a company that gave weekends and holidays off, I would keep myself busy somehow.

Hobbies. Rebuilding RX7s, taking Pine64s and making neural nets from them, hanging shelves, writing, experimenting with new hardware and software (and libraries).
Maybe because of this, over the years that part of me atrophied from lack of use. Maybe I just was implicitly part of a hacker ethic, or maybe, just maybe, I loved avoiding the drama associated with other people from being misunderstood, from getting into a pissing contest, or listening to someone blather on about things that I didn’t care about (a staple of many relationships).
Maybe I’m just not a people person. People I interact with feel otherwise, generally, but that’s part of the load of doing it.

If I have to interact with someone, I want it to be positive, thoughtful, and as painless as possible while being as honest as possible. This is not an easy task with most people. ‘Painless’ is a matter of someone’s sensitivity and the ability to apply soft enough words to make a point without getting a person in pain, or defensive (which is a reaction to previous pains).

It’s easier to sit down and write these things after some thought rather than to do it in person, because you can just sit and think about what you write, but in a tense human conversation it’s all about improv, and when people run out of improv, bad things happen. Sometimes bad things just happen, but with a bit of experience, these can be avoided if one pays attention.

In all, it’s a lot of work. For some, it’s all very easy, but for me I see it as a lot of work. And that’s how I tricked myself into doing it on weekends and on holidays.