I have found that one common element in the things I want to build or fix is that I am opinionated about that thing. I am going to claim that having opinions is a prerequisite to being motivated to shape the world to suit my opinions a little better.
If I think about everything that I don't have an opinion about, it's things that I don't understand very well. For example, car washes. I do not care what a car wash tunnel has, if it is brushless or not, if it uses some fancy shampoo or not - I have zero opinions. I can never find motivation to want to go redesign it, fix it or develop software for it.
But something like Github's pull request review? Oh boy. It's absolutely insane that you can not comment on an unchanged line in a file you are reviewing. If someone changes a function call 3 out of 4 places, and you want to leave a comment on that unchanged line of code saying "Hey, you forgot to change this too" - guess what? You can't. In my opinion, this is insanely moronic. An opinion like this can easily motivate one to want to go fix a thing or build a thing. (I don't want to solve this problem for other reasons, but that's unrelated to this discussion).
How do you form opinions? I don't know, but my guess is that listening to opinionated people with good taste really helps. Dan Norman's book "The Design of everyday things" [0] is one example of a very opinionated work. Bryan Cantrill of Oxide is also often very opinionated on system design, and his podcasts and talks are really fun [1]. When Steve Jobs was talking about just anything, he couldn't help being opinionated af [2]. I love "In praise of Shadows" by Junichiro Tanizaki where he just talks about experiences but you can tell he is deeply opinionated [3].
I don't know how one can develop good taste. Being around art, music, movies, people who obsess over details, people who care, people who expect perfection and accept nothing less - I believe there's some sort of osmosis where you just absorb aspects. I believe surrounding yourself with fantastic art, hiking through majestic trails, chilling with inspiring people - all help reset your acceptance of mediocrity down to 0. I am convinced that this is essential.
If I think about everything that I don't have an opinion about, it's things that I don't understand very well. For example, car washes. I do not care what a car wash tunnel has, if it is brushless or not, if it uses some fancy shampoo or not - I have zero opinions. I can never find motivation to want to go redesign it, fix it or develop software for it.
But something like Github's pull request review? Oh boy. It's absolutely insane that you can not comment on an unchanged line in a file you are reviewing. If someone changes a function call 3 out of 4 places, and you want to leave a comment on that unchanged line of code saying "Hey, you forgot to change this too" - guess what? You can't. In my opinion, this is insanely moronic. An opinion like this can easily motivate one to want to go fix a thing or build a thing. (I don't want to solve this problem for other reasons, but that's unrelated to this discussion).
How do you form opinions? I don't know, but my guess is that listening to opinionated people with good taste really helps. Dan Norman's book "The Design of everyday things" [0] is one example of a very opinionated work. Bryan Cantrill of Oxide is also often very opinionated on system design, and his podcasts and talks are really fun [1]. When Steve Jobs was talking about just anything, he couldn't help being opinionated af [2]. I love "In praise of Shadows" by Junichiro Tanizaki where he just talks about experiences but you can tell he is deeply opinionated [3].
I don't know how one can develop good taste. Being around art, music, movies, people who obsess over details, people who care, people who expect perfection and accept nothing less - I believe there's some sort of osmosis where you just absorb aspects. I believe surrounding yourself with fantastic art, hiking through majestic trails, chilling with inspiring people - all help reset your acceptance of mediocrity down to 0. I am convinced that this is essential.
[0] https://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Revised-Expand...
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTVfAMRj-7E
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qdplq4cj76I
[3] https://www.amazon.com/Praise-Shadows-Junichiro-Tanizaki/dp/...