On Creating

2025.09.14

CXVII

[The Art of Being Human; We All Create; Antisocial Creation; Honey & SaaS; Ship, Don’t Guess; The Joy of Creating]

Thesis: Creating things is one of the most satisfying feelings in the world, & it’s even better when you create things that people actually want.

[The Art of Being Human]

Creating things is closely tied to what it means to be human.

I’m not going to claim that I know the meaning of life or have a great definition of humanity, but I do think that the act of creating things is very closely tied to purpose.

Asides from being satisfying on it’s own, creating things is a leveraged way to provide value to your friends, family, community, or the world (your tribe). I say leveraged, because the thing you create can provide value to a lot of people at once.

Think about playing live music at a bar—you are positively impacting most of the people at the bar, unless they really don’t like the genre you’re playing.

I use that example because the creation really doesn’t have to be so grand as building a piece of software that everyone uses, or making electric cars commercially viable.

Those things are great, but even creating at a much smaller scale can be one of the most satisfying experiences there is.

[We All Create]

As humans, we have a very natural drive to create thing. In my own life, I’ve been creating as long as I can remember.

These things start small and simple—for me, it was playing with legos. I built physical things and fantastic imaginary worlds in which those things resided.

Then in high school, I started writing a lot. Eventually, I published some poetry books as I entered college.

In college, I helped create an options trading club and started a hedge fund.

After that, I made some software products that didn't work out.

Now, I’m creating BirdDog.

And, for the last two years, all along, I've been creating this blog.

If you look at your own life, you've probably been creating things, too, even if it's completely different than any of the things I've created, and even if you yourself don’t see it as ‘creating.’ Maybe you create by making candles or crocheting or making music or financial models or toilets or houses or building teams. (I also consider repairing things as an act of creation).

I wouldn't be surprised if you creating those things is actually one of the most satisfying things that you do.

If you're not convinced, just pause for a moment and compare how you feel after writing, or drawing, or painting, or playing piano, or crocheting, or cooking to how you feel after doom scrolling on social media or binge watching tv or eating nerds gummy clusters (the crash, not the high).

I'd be surprised if you didn't say that asides from being with other people who you care about, exercising, doing charity work, being in nature, eating a good meal, drinking water, winning competitions, or having sex, creating isn't one of the most satisfying experiences there is. And to clear, I don't mean 'pleasurable', like a drug, I mean satisfying… you feel as if you are 'more' after you have done it. Additive, not subtractive. (if you do come up with something that is more satisfying than the items in my list, please respond to this email to let me know).

[Antisocial Creation]

In someways, I'm a particularly anti social specimen.

If you put me in a room and all of my needs were taken care of, I would still create things for the sake of creating them. I could do this without any regard for whether or not anyone cared about whether those things were created—the act of creating is sufficiently satisfying for me.

As an example, I have written a novel that only 5 people have read. I am satisfied by the act of having written it, and don’t need to release it to feel like I accomplished something. In some ways, having written something that I believe to be objectively good is enough.

I don't think this attitude is an inherently bad thing, but it can be.

From one angle, this is actually really powerful, because it means I can work on a thing that I am convinced will be valuable for a long time, even if other people don't see it right away.

However, it can also be a trap, because I can get caught spending a lot of time building things that are not valuable for other people. And generally, I would say that things that are valuable for other people other are more valuable overall.

I’d be lying if I didn’t say I would be more satisfied with the novel if I released it and it did well.

[Honey & SaaS]

I keep bees. My father does a lot of the work, and could really do it without me. But, I still help with it, and the hours that I do are a direct contribution to producing something that both myself and a lot of other people love: honey.

Being able to gift honey to people is a very satisfying thing, much more satisfying than the act of keeping bees on it's own. Not only does honey taste good, but it is also very healthy, too. I feel satisfied being able to give it to other people.

When you're creating something, there are 2 interesting & overlapping categories that the thing can fall into*:

1. You think it's valuable

2. You think other people think it's valuable

It's one thing to build a thing that you think is cool or valuable, but when both categories apply, it gets a lot better. The same satisfaction you got for creating the thing is amplified every time someone else uses it.

There's something primal and tribal about that--the thing you built is an extension of you acting in the community to lift up your 'tribe.' That seems to be very closely tied to a lot of traditional definitions of 'meaning' and 'purpose,' and I don't know if that is an accident.

Even if it's but a biological artifact of evolution, I'm not so sure that diminishes it (if anything, it may elevate it).

In a lot of ways, the fact that there is additional satisfaction from other people benefiting from your creation simply 'is', no matter what you do about it. For me, it applies to both honey & SaaS, as I’m sure it applies to your crocheting or candle making or singing or dj’ing or financial modeling.

The more users tell Jack & I they get value out of BirdDog, the better we feel about building it. This is very natural; we certainly wouldn't want to build and sell something that WASN'T valuable!

*A third category, 'you don't think anyone thinks it's valuable' is kind of funny and nihilistic and gets into semantics more than anything--do you think it's valuable that no one else thinks it's valuable?

[Ship, Don’t Guess]

Notice that in both our two above categories, we didn't talk about building things that were valuable, we talked about building things you think are valuable.

This is because there's a whole other dimension to creating--there is an "estimated" value of a thing before you start creating it, and then there is an actual, realized value after you actually create it.

When it is a very straightforward thing like honey, there isn't so much complexity; I have a pretty accurate idea of how valuable honey is before I produce it.

The further you get from the 'known', the harder it is to estimate the value.

What about honey infused with cayenne? Maybe you will like it, but if you have not actually had it, it is hard to say for sure.

When you’re creating things for yourself, you can always test it and figure out the value pretty quickly. When other people are involved, it becomes a lot harder.

Do they actually find value in it, or are they being nice? Is it actually useless, or did you just explain it wrong or give it to the wrong person? Do they actually know that if you add that feature or make that tweak that it will become valuable or are they guessing—just like you?

Still, like the surest way to find out if you think Cayenne Coffee would be valuable is to try it, the surest way to find out if other people actually find the thing you’ve created to be valuable is by giving it to them and having them use it. This is the case even if it can be hard to decrypt their feedback.

In this way, creation of things for others is compounding. The more you do it and the more you understand them, the more valuable the thing you are creating becomes.

And, up to a point, the more valuable it is for the tribe, the more satisfying it is for you.

If you liked this post, please subscribe—some might say it would be more satisfying for me to know that my creation is valuable to others!

[The Joy of Creating]

A lot of people comment on my having written this blog for the last 2 years and not missing a beat. After reading this post, you should know that it’s not as big of a deal as you might think.

I can't tell you how satisfying it feels to sit in the sun on a weekend morning, cup of coffee in hand, focusing solely on creating something I believe is valuable and that is valuable to at least a few other people, too.

In hope you & others get the same satisfaction from the things you create in your own life, even if you might not always consider it ‘creation.’

Live Deeply,