You Don't Want to Make Things, You Want to Have Made Things

One thing I’ve learned about myself over the years is that I want to watch movies, but I want to have watched tv shows. Of course it isn’t black and white like that, there are exceptions on both sides, but broadly speaking, with movies I’m looking forward to watching them, with shows I’m looking forward to finishing them - to having watched them. TV shows are just so long, man. Yes, I’m interested in this show, but am I interested enough to want to watch all of this?

I think that’s how a lot of people feel about making things.

For different reasons.

Some want the feeling of having made something. Without the hassle of making it. "I made this" meme meets "but it's hard" Scott Pilgrim gif.

Some think that making something is fun in the same way using it is. You see this a lot in video games. "I love playing games I'd love to make one." And yes, making games is fun, it's just a very different kind of fun than playing them.

Some want to have the thing, but they don’t enjoy the process of making it. This is different from "I made this", it's addressing a specific need. If someone else was making that thing they wouldn't even be thinking about making it.

And then there's, of course, the delusion you could make quick and easy money. When reality is neither quick, nor easy, nor money. For most people in the arts or entertainment, including people you've probably seen or heard of, having to quit their profession to become a gig economy food delivery driver represents a raise of hourly wages and overall income. And I'm talking about people who actually managed to make a living at some point - then there's also the ones who never get a paid gig in the first place.

You can read a lot of this pretty clearly between the lines (and sometimes straight up on the lines) of how tech companies are trying to sell generative “AI”.

I hate that so called "AI" now has to be part of this topic. In the past you'd try something, realize it isn't for you, come to terms with it and move on. Which is BIG! Admitting to yourself that something isn't for you, that there's something you can't do and being able to live with it and move on requires character. A healthy relationship with your ego. It's not easy. And now you have these snake-oil salesmen trying to tell you otherwise. Keeping you from growing as a person.

It was already hard enough to convince people that it's okay not to be good at everything, now it's next to impossible.

I guess this is somewhat related to yesterday's What People Get Wrong About Discipline

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