Some people seem to be attracted to “type 2” fun, that is to say, activities which require hard work or fortitude, and which don’t always result in an obvious payoff for the efforts expended.  For these people, the joy is found in the process as much as in the results.  For some, that process is months or even years long: day in and day out, putting in the miles on the court, or the trail, or the road, embracing the long game, accepting that often the activity just feels hard, no matter how much preparation has gone into it.

I’ve always been drawn to activities that humans have been doing for millennia.  I love so-called “trowel trades:” plaster, tile, stone masonry, etc., that still use elemental materials and ancient techniques.  When Tutankhamun’s tomb was discovered in the 1920s, the plasterwork was so well-preserved that you could still see the trowel strokes, as if the workers had just completed construction days before.