Why To Make Things

Blending these two notions, carpentry entails making things that explain how things make their world.

We live in an era where a motivated 12-year-old can learn the basics of timber framing, semiconductor design, or how to bake bread that would rival world-class bakeries. They can master nearly any mechanical system or any number of programming or artistic vocations, even if no mentor lives nearby. The limit is no longer some teacher or institution

people sometimes produce good things just because the things are good, but people rarely produce bad things just because they are bad. People often do things because they believe that these things are good for themselves, or good for others, or good for the world.

People who experience flow describe it as “a state of effortless concentration so deep that they lose their sense of time, of themselves, of their problems,” and their descriptions of the joy of that state are so compelling that Csikszentmihalyi has called it an “optimal experience.” Many activities can induce a sense of flow, from painting to raci