What Happens When People Stop Making Things?
The opportunity to create is about far more than artistic expression. It is one of the ways we discover that our choices, ideas, and actions still have the power to shape the world around us.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about creativity.
Not artistic talent. Creativity.
The deeply human impulse to make something, shape something, grow something, sing something, write something, build something, or share something that did not exist before.
I am an artist, a singer, and a dancer.
So are you.
Not because we all do those things professionally, but because human beings are born creators. We learn through play. We express ourselves through movement. We make meaning through stories. We connect through shared experiences.
Yet many of us spend most of our days consuming rather than creating - answering emails, attending meetings, responding to texts, scrolling through feeds. Or managing responsibilities – caring for children, patients, students, clients, and communities.
By the end of the day, we may have solved problems, completed tasks, and fulfilled obligations but we haven’t made anything.
What happens to people when they spend most of their lives responding rather than creating?
What I am coming to understand is that, when people make something, they experience themselves as a cause rather than an effect. As authors, rather than spectators.
They take an idea, a feeling, a curiosity, and give it physical form. A loaf of bread. A song. A garden. A photograph. A quilt. A story. A sketch. A dance.
The finished piece matters, but the deeper experience is realizing that we have the capacity to shape the world around us. Even in a small way, we discover that our thoughts, choices, and actions can become something tangible. That is agency.
When we stop engaging in those activities, we don’t just lose a hobby. We lose one of the most direct ways human beings experience influence, expression, and possibility.
Researchers have long connected creative expression with well-being, resilience, and a sense of purpose. Occupational therapists often use creative and tactile activities to support healing and recovery. Studies of flow suggest that immersive, hands-on experiences can reduce rumination and increase engagement.
Human beings were never meant to spend all day consuming other people's ideas. We were meant to create some of our own. And perhaps that is one reason so many people feel increasingly disconnected from their own influence.
In my work as a facilitator and coach, I spend a lot of time listening to people talk about exhaustion, overwhelm, disconnection, and a growing sense that life is happening to them rather than through them.
I am beginning to wonder whether part of the problem is not simply stress, but rather (or as well) a lack of opportunities to create.
The pottery in the photo above sits on a shelf in my home. It is deeply imperfect.
The vase became so unstable on the wheel that I had to reshape it by hand to stop it from collapsing. It still wobbles when you touch it. The glaze did not behave the way I imagined it would. Tiny cracks appeared during firing, making it unsuitable for holding water. The polished moonstone attached to the front wasn’t part of the original design at all. It was added later to hide a significant flaw caused by an accidental application of wax.
By many measures, it is a failed piece. And yet I love it, not because it is beautiful, but because every unexpected problem became an invitation to adapt, experiment, and learn.
The value of the piece is not that it exists. The value is that it changed me while I was making it.
Every time I look at it, I remember that human beings can take an idea and give it form. We can shape things, we can influence our environment, we can make something that wasn’t there before. And if I can do that with a lump of clay, perhaps I can do it in other parts of my life as well.
Perhaps that is why creating things feels so restorative. It reminds us that we are not merely observers of our lives. We are participants in them.
If you have ever visited the Roycroft Campus in East Aurora (and you should!) you will see a sign that proclaims …
“Art is not a thing, it’s a way.”
Elbert Hubbard, the author of this quote and father of the Arts and Crafts movement in the United States, was telling us that art is not a final product or object and creating is not an activity reserved for a talented few. Artistic thinking is a mindset that shapes how you see the world, it informs what you value and it is a quintessential part of what makes us human.
Perhaps now, more than ever, we need opportunities to make things—not because the world needs more pottery, paintings, or poems, but because we need regular reminders that we still possess the capacity to influence what happens next.