And then when they have kids, they remember how much fun it is. Kids give me the excuse not to be embarrassed, but I'm not really building the sandcastles just for them!

Thinking about schools, the workplace, the economic systems we live under, and how many things constantly require action from our brains (vs. free space to imagine), the former three all frequently punishing significant deviation from a given norm, this isn't entirely surprising. Unfortunately I've found it impacts me, too.

Ironically, my absolute favourite beach activity is road building. I head off to the edges where the rocks, sand, and shore meet where the sand is damp. I then compact damp sand onto the rocks to make little roads and try to build a network of roads that keeps road gradient below a certain threshold. It’s a fun problem solving exercise and almost on a par with Cities Skylines!

That's why I love my job as a software engineer: I never unlearned to create something out of nothing.

Never heard that

Good reminder