prutsen ======= June 11, 2020 https://stefan.vanburen.xyz/blog/prutsen/ I recently learned of "prutsen", a Dutch word meaning ["to fiddle around"](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/prutsen). In a lot of ways, I think it encompasses a lot of how I approach some of my computer diversions. For example, this website, at the time of writing, has [135 commits on it](https://git.sr.ht/~svbn/stefan.vanburen.xyz). With a total of five published posts, and most of my posts being written within a commit or two, much of the work being done on this site is cosmetic. For example, [tweaking CSS indentation](https://git.sr.ht/~svbn/stefan.vanburen.xyz/commit/6107cf3e0cbea2313179880abab3fd3050693a12) or [ensuring the RSS feed contains the entire content of the post](https://git.sr.ht/~svbn/stefan.vanburen.xyz/commit/12330139fc35f3d5289910bc9367b5abee8b5e12). Likewise, my dotfiles sit at a [healthy 910 commits](https://github.com/stefanvanburen/dotfiles) currently. I recently went through a bit of a [dotfile purge](/blog/spring-cleaning) that added quite a few of those, but in general, tweaking my dotfiles has been a hobby for the better part of a decade. Prutsen gives me a name for all this tweaking and fiddling --- so cathartic! 💆 _Update_: After this post I truly could not remember where I had found "prutsen" in the first place. I finally found it: [Do Inhabit](https://thedobook.co/products/do-inhabit-style-your-space-for-a-creative-and-considered-life), by Sue Fan and Danielle Quigley. From page 11: > This Dutch word translates loosely to doing something of very little significance that only looks like work, or tinkering. {source="[Do Inhabit](https://thedobook.co/products/do-inhabit-style-your-space-for-a-creative-and-considered-life)"} Good to know where it originally came from!