We are all consumers of things. These things are everything from food to software based services. We are trained to want more things, use more things and find that one thing that will finally make us not want any other things but it never ends up working that way. Over the last 10 years I figured out that making something is way more fulfilling.

Years ago I figured out that I enjoy writing code. Specifically FLOSS. While I always heard FLOSS was great because you “scratch your own itch” I found myself looking at what others were looking for and trying to figure out a way to get it done. That didn’t keep me from coming up with my own ideas, but I found trying to implement someone’s idea of things was more of a challenge — like a puzzle. Imprinting my own way of thinking in code is “easy”, but trying to wrap my mind around someone else’s way of tackling problems isn’t so straight forward.

I believe my want to create has also shaded my view on things like tablets as laptop replacements. I can’t produce things I consider valuable with a tablet (with exceptions to adding a keyboard and having an ssh client). I can produce communications and consume but that doesn’t cut it. I want tools to create that let me produce well crafted results I can feel satisfied with.

Over the last few years I’ve found my want to create things does not stop at producing software. I’ve picked up brewing which has really been a challenge I’ve enjoyed. I still have so far to go but with each attempt I find things I could do better and improve my results. I’ve also picked up more baking which I had done a bit of before. For some reason making bread is a very relaxing process for me.

Over the weekend I found myself with nothing on my plate to make. I felt bored, frustrated and found myself grasping at things to do. For instance, I start to rewrite some code in a different language just to do it. Of course this didn’t actually make me feel any better as it didn’t really serve any real purpose. I turned to cook some food to eat later in the week which helped, but didn’t really do it for me. All this reminded me that I am one of those folks who has to actually make things. I need to create to things. Maybe it’s a way of expression or maybe it just proves I have “value” (Hi Tim) but no matter what I need to make things.