They do it because it's fun for them and they have the free time to do it. They'll swear up and down it's because they have to have absolute control over every

They do it because it's fun for them and they have the free time to do it. They'll swear up and down it's because they have to have absolute control over every aspect of their system because that's so, so, so important and necessary to everything they do, but in reality it's because they've got the time to do it and they're fundamentally doing it because it's fun and interesting for them. Nothing wrong with that, that was me at one time. Of course, at the time I too swore up and down that all the time I spent maintaining my system(s) was because it was somehow really important for me to do so, and I only had a vague suspicion that it was really just me having fun learning about stuff and hacking around on all sorts of low-level things that I wouldn't get to mess around with otherwise. I still do it when I find the time but it's usually with a little more self-awareness about my motivations for doing so. :)