From the earliest days of childhood, before words come easily and long before reasoned arguments take shape, there is an urge: to make. Children instinctively reach for crayons, sticks, and whatever else they can use to leave a mark. Before they can write, they scribble; once they can write, it’s hard to stop them. The drive to create is not something learned—it is something built into us, a fundamental way of understanding the world.

The Tools We Use, The Tools We Find

Humanity has always fashioned tools for creation. From prehistoric cave paintings to the latest Gibson LesPaul Elite, we shape our environment to express ourselves. Children exemplify this: they appropriate whatever is at hand. A cardboard box becomes a spaceship, wooden spoons turn the bookshelf into a drumset. Creativity is not limited by the tools available – tools become extensions of the creative act itself.

When we grow and call ourselves artists, we broadly fall into two camps: those whose work is idea-led and those whose work is tool-led. The first group begins with a concept, refining their vision before they ever touch a brush or chisel. The second lets their tools dictate the process, responding intuitively to the medium. Michelangelo, famously, saw his sculptures as already existing within the marble: “[The sculpture] is already there. I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.”

But at its heart, making is not about which camp one falls into. It is about the need to express something, to externalize a thought, a feeling, an identity.

Making as Expression, Not Production

If we look closely, we see that making is deeply intertwined with self-expression. And yet, there is a modern pressure to justify every act of creativity—to monetize it, to refine it into perfection, to share it with an audience. To get it ready for external consumption. But not everything needs an audience.

Think of the millions of pages of bad teenage poetry stuffed into drawers and notetaking apps, never meant to be read aloud, just meant to exist. Or the sketches in notebooks, the melodies hummed into phone recordings, the half-finished projects abandoned not because they failed, but because they served their purpose. These are acts of making for the sake of making, and they matter. Unlike passive consumption, which asks nothing of us but to receive, making allows us to pour ourselves into something. The process becomes the validation.

Making and Identity

Creating, building, making—these acts help us understand who we are, who we want to be, and our place in the world. They give us agency. Any loaf of bread, any short story, any collection of Lego bricks are so much more than just the object. They are shaping our identities, carving out a sense of self.

But in the age of social media, where everything is curated and filtered, the simple joy of making can feel out of reach. The endless scroll of impossibly perfect homes, flawlessly executed art, and polished final products can make the idea of beginning something feel futile. To start something usually means to be bad at it, and when every reference point is a finished masterpiece, why even try?

An Audience of One

At its core, making is an act of self-definition. Every mark on a page, every piece of music hummed absentmindedly, every object shaped by hand is a reflection of the maker. It is not always about innovation or skill—it is about presence. When we create, we leave traces of ourselves in the world, even if no one else ever sees them.

Unlike consumption, which absorbs the world as it is, making allows us to shape it in our image, constructing our identity. The process itself is an expression of who we are, who we are becoming.

In this way, making is a form of understanding. It is how children figure out their place in the world, how adults reconnect with parts of themselves that words alone cannot express. It is not about achieving mastery or reaching an audience—it is about creating something that, even in its imperfection, reflects something true.

So what if there were better ways to make things together, over time, shared just with the ones we care about and not the world at large?