curiosity maxxing

i’ve been full time trading for 4 years, more or less. it ate everything. not a complaint. but i noticed i’d lost the thing i used to be good at: diving into some random skill with no plan except “this looks hard, i wanna try it.”

this last summer i went back to australia for the first time in almost 3 years. living in my old childhood room i found a book i was obsessed with when i was maybe 5-10: the dangerous book for boys. it’s a pile of random shit to do as a young boy. i did 90% of it as a kid. re-reading it was the reminder. that’s the whole point of this site. curiosity maxxing. trying new shit on purpose.

so i ran a poll. give me a summer goal. i landed on golf.

i’d been to the range as a kid. never really played. just swung as hard as i could and hoped.

the goal was one round, 10 over par. get the “official” handicap to around a 20 in a few solid months, then steal a day with a couple std dev of luck.

here’s what i didn’t do. i didn’t get fitted. i didn’t buy a tour bag. i didn’t take 20 lessons or read 50 books before i hit a ball.

you think you need the full bag. you don’t.

i bought second hand clubs and started hitting.

played a few holes with my grandma. she’s very good. she gave me 1-2 tips that actually mattered, then i went back to hitting.

you learn by doing until the fog thins enough that you can name the problems. not “i suck at golf.” a specific thing that’s broken. that’s a known unknown. now you have something worth looking up.

that’s when i skimmed the practice manual. not cover to cover. i went looking for the two things i could already feel were broken, tried them on the range, kept what stuck, threw out the rest. repeat.

the whole time i was training for the goal in front of me. one round, 10 over. not “become a golfer.” not flop shots, not a 60 degree wedge, not a draw on command. 4-5 clubs. the ones i actually hit. no special shots.

about 2 months in, averaging 100 balls a day when i wasn’t travelling, i shot +19. including a 5x bogey, if that’s even a real thing.

dunning kruger is real. being aware of it is enough to walk through the valley instead of quitting at the bottom.

shit is always easier than you think. the hard part is not micro-optimising yourself out of starting. you do not need the full bag. you need to do the thing, notice what’s actually broken, fix that, and ignore the rest.

same reason i liked learning to trade. you can literally just do things, if you do them. fuck around, find out, you’ll be ahead of 99% of people still shopping for the perfect setup.

i’ll probably miss the end of summer target. doesn’t matter. the golf is a sidequest. this was the first one. that’s curiosity maxxing. i’ve started a few more. i’ll write those up as they go, plus whatever else i get nerd-sniped by.

stay tuned