Why To Make Things

A collection for Paul Kirwin based on this prompt: “I’m a retired custom woodworker. I find community in the writings of others that have found satisfaction and comfort and value in the crafting of things. I’m not looking for ‘How-To Make Things’ books but more like ‘Why To Make Things’ books”

Alex Dobrenko

A man from the city went on a retreat to the forest where he met an old woman who lived in a small shack. He said to her "It seems like a great deal of work to chop wood and build a fire just so you can make your tea." She responded "It seems like a great deal of work to wake up early and go to a job for 40 hours of every week to afford electricity

It is as if there were a natural law which ordained that to achieve this end, to refine the curve of a piece of furniture, or a ship’s keel, or the fuselage of an airplane, until gradually it partakes of the elementary purity of the curve of the human breast or shoulder, there must be experimentation of several generations of craftsmen.

Naomi Klein • Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman--Including 10 More Years of Business Unusual

Making nice things is difficult and time-consuming.

If we want people to make nice things for us, we have to pay for their rent and grocery bills and raw materials

The point of these lines is clear. In the old days, craftsmen did not cut corners. They worked carefully, and they took care with every aspect of their work. Every part of the product was considered, and each was designed and made to be exactly as it should be. These craftsmen did not relax their thoughtful self-discipline even with respect to... See more

Harry Frankfurt • On Bullshit

I think we adults have a similar innate drive to create, and that drive can be supported or stifled by the environment. And, I think that instead of creating environments where we are creative by default , we live in a world where we are distracted by default .

Casey Rosengren • Creative by Default

Flow: The Psychology of Happiness

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi • 52 highlights

amazon.com

Cover of Flow: The Psychology of Happiness

Making ceramics requires patience and is an exercise in delayed gratification (or dissatisfaction). There are so many ways to fuck something up, so many stages to the process, and entering that cycle of hope, expectation, and either failure and trying again or ecstatic satisfaction added a new dimension to the rhythms of my life.

Marian Bull • When a hobby becomes a job

The desire to create for its own sake is what it means to be human.

Thomas Bevan • Our Tools and Us