Make Something Heavy

AI now promises results without the reckoning, but frictionless creation leads to weightless rewards. No one dreams of merely pushing a button to generate their magnum opus. The struggle is what makes it count, what gives it weight.1

People ask, "What are you working on?" They’re really asking: What’s your endgame? (It’s one of my favorite questions, too.) My answer is simple, but not easy:

Make something heavy.

Creative people are restless souls, forever chasing the horizon until they’ve made something substantial. We spend our lives crafting weighted blankets for ourselves—something heavy enough to anchor our ambition and quiet our minds.

You don’t feel like a true creator because you haven’t made anything heavy, and deep down, you know light things don’t count. Your output is high, but your imprint is low. You ship, but you do not build. You call yourself a creator, but what have you made that could survive a month offline? A year? A decade? If you stopped posting tomorrow, would a... See more

And then you feel it: a quiet, gnawing hollowness that, for all the making, nothing has truly been made. Why does it feel bad to stop posting after weeks of consistency? Because the force of your work instantly drops to zero. It was all motion, no mass—momentum without weight. 99% dopamine, near-zero serotonin, and no trace of oxytocin.

Some go straight for the heavy: building the billion-dollar startup, writing the world-changing book, recording the defining album. No pit stops . Or, in less relative terms: things that will stand on their own and stand the test of time. Weight is lindy . Others build up to this: essays before the book, short films before the feature, prototypes b... See more

No matter how many you stack, Tweets and TikToks don’t add up to something heavy. They don’t solidify. At best, they’re a pile of snowflakes, intricate yet ephemeral. Beautiful while they’re here, gone before they hit the ground.

So many creators start in the shallow pool of some algorithm’s grip—until, inevitably, they go searching for something heavier. From short-form to long-form. From building in public to locking in to solitude, obsession, deep work. To create a book, a film, an album, a company—something that stands alone.

Creation isn’t just about output. It’s a process of becoming. The best work shapes the maker as much as the audience. A founder builds a startup to prove they can. A writer wrestles an idea into clarity. You don’t just create heavy things. You become someone who can.