[rustyboy]

do you find that the side projects are for: fun, learning, or some external pressure like the parent suggested?

what I find is that picking up a new hobby causes me a lot of mental anguish. there's a lot of very basic elementary blocks to learn. however with tech, i always have this hard skill in my back pocket that avoids those initial difficulties. if I want to learn a new language or framework, i'm not starting from scratch but a vast web of other learnings (and I slightly like the stuff so that helps.)