Splurging on Tools

I’ve always grown up with a mindset that you should always improvise with what you have on hand to get a job done. It was supposedly more efficient, cost effective, and doesn’t disrupt your workflow, or so I thought.

Throughout history, most if not all animals have some trait that makes them unique. Cheetahs run fast, bats have echolocation, and sharks have electroreception. What do us humans got going for us? Sure we’re pretty good at long distance running, but we’re outclassed by horses and ostriches, among others. The main thing that probably sets us apart from any other animal is our ability to make and use tools. It’s what we’ve been doing for pretty much all of human existence.

I’ve come to realize that in modern society, we’re really not making our tools and using them anymore. They’re either already on the shelf in Walmart, or just a click away on Amazon. Consequently, there has to be a spectrum that should be considered when it comes to buying things.

On one end, there’s the DIY, the guy who takes pride in creating their own things from scratch, just for the bragging rights it comes with. Yeah it’s impressive that you made your V8 engine from scratch, but anyone’s who’s not a gearhead will probably just go “Oh that’s cool, does it go fast?”, and move on.

On the other end, you have the consoomer. You know, the shelf with a few dozen funko pops, posters plastered all over the wall, religious brand following, etc. They solely live life off of the dopamine hit they get when the their next Star Wars lego set comes at the door. It’s basically Christmas everyday for them.

Obviously being on either extreme is probably not a healthy mindset to have, like most things. A stupidly simple heuristic that I recently came across from George Hotz on this topic followed something along the lines of “if you use it everyday, buy it, otherwise, don’t???”.

This really resonated with me, as I’ve been spending a lot over the past year on many different tools, such as 3D printers, the mods for them, almost every single electronic gadget you can think of, and probably half a dozen different types of calipers for various types of measurement. But the outcome seems to be a mix of the two spectrums, I consoom with the intend of building something myself. And it really comes in handy when someone else needs a quick fix, I could always lend a hand (tool). I wonder where that would fall on the line? Right in the middle I suppose? I get the giddy feeling of buying new tools, AND the pride that comes along with creating something with it. Maybe this is all just cope, but I’ll stick with it for now and see where it leads me.

“buy to diy”

-ekd