Yesterday I wanted to change the blog’s color scheme. After tinkering for half an hour, I gave up.

The Tinkering Maniac I Once Was

Ten years ago, I could stay up all night researching, benchmarking, and fine-tuning just to optimize an Nginx config by a few milliseconds. To pick a suitable blog theme, I would clone all the popular themes from GitHub and compare them one by one, taking screenshots and notes.

Back then, tinkering was the fun itself. Compiling kernels, configuring dual-boot systems, building private clouds, writing automation scripts… not for any practical gain, just because it was fun.

My friend asked me: what are you tinkering for?

I said: for nothing, just for the thrill of it.

My State Now

Yesterday I wanted to change the blog’s color scheme. I opened Chrome DevTools, glanced at a few CSS variables, and thought it was too much trouble. After a moment’s thought, I decided the current color scheme was just fine.

Switch servers? The old one still works, too lazy to migrate.

Upgrade Hugo version? Let’s wait until it’s stable. It’s working fine now anyway.

Learn a new framework? I looked at the number of documentation pages and quietly closed the browser tab.

Too tired to tinker, haha.

It’s Not That I Don’t Want To—The Cost Has Changed

Thinking about it carefully, my passion hasn’t disappeared; the cost of tinkering has changed.

In my twenties, time was abundant. After an all-nighter, I’d be fully recharged after sleeping in until noon. Now, if I stay up late, the next day I’m walking on clouds and need two or three days to recover.

I used to be single and could spend entire weekends in front of the computer without anyone caring. Now weekends are for family, grocery shopping, cooking, and handling various life chores. The time left for technical tinkering is maybe one or two hours at night, and I’m often too sleepy to keep my eyes open.

It’s not that I don’t love tinkering—it’s that I can’t afford it anymore.

Learning to Compromise

I used to pursue perfection—the config had to be optimal, the code had to be elegant, the theme had to be beautiful.

Now I think: good enough is good enough.

Hugo can generate static pages? Good enough. Nginx can run? Good enough. Markdown can be written and published? Good enough. Performance optimization, visual design, frontend engineering… all take a back seat to “keeping it simple.”

This is probably what maturity looks like—knowing your energy is limited and learning to invest resources in what truly matters.

But the Habit of Recording Remains

I may be too tired to tinker, but the habit of blogging is still there.

Only the method has changed. Before, I tinkered while recording; now I just record without tinkering. I write down ideas, feelings, and experiences—not seeking perfection or depth, just leaving a trace.

Sometimes I’m even too lazy to write and just throw some material at AI to organize it into an article. I review it, make some edits, and publish.

See, this is also progress—from doing everything myself to knowing how to leverage help.

In the End

So if you also feel like you can’t tinker anymore, don’t worry.

We were all young and passionate once. Our current “laziness” is just our former enthusiasm, transformed into a more steady way of living.

Too tired to tinker, haha. But still here, and that’s enough.