Why is it that with the ease of publishing available today people so often choose to re-post content as opposed to create it?

Jon-Kyle,

Read your article this morning and wanted to give you some solace about the situation.

Most people don’t make things. Never have. Never will. It’s not necessarily a point of pride for those of us that do, but more a question of people’s innate desires. Some have the compulsion to make things and others do not. Even before these tools popped up, most folks’ jobs were to be consumers of the things created by a smaller group of individuals willing to do that creative work. No shame in that. Somebody needs to be the audience, right?

Most people will never make anything. Because making something is work. Optional work, at that. Design, art, writing, whatever: it’s work, and work is hard. You have to organize your ideas and sweat on the page until something good shows up. I think what has happened is that these newer tools that promote sharing allow audiences to feel like they’re making something through curation. It’s participation, and that has them feel like they’re making something, much in the same way that chatting with someone online makes you feel like you’re talking to them. It’s not the same (that’s besides the point), but the lizard part of our brain says it is the same.

The world is starved for original content, but it’s not because less people are making than any other point in history. It’s simply because more people are curating the work that the world makes. Blogs, Tumblrs, FFFFound, magazines, etc. It’s a wonderful time to be a maker because there are so many ways for people to appreciate your work.

But there are so many digital and printed pack-rat collections of stuff. And man, every time you save something online, it’s a copy, so you never run out of stuff. We’ve set up a system that says “By looking at other people’s work, your work gets better.” Maybe so, but usually not once a creative reaches beyond straight imitation. Looking at other people’s work is usually done in lieu of actually working, and seeks to find relevant, borrowed solutions from other people’s different tasks, problems and processes.

Then again, good creative work is a siren’s song: it’s enjoyable, beautiful, and inspiring. It makes one think that these qualities can rub off on them or their work by possessing the same space. Why wouldn’t they want to save it to their blog?

Part of me wonders when the novelty of it will wane. It’s definitely satisfaction-driven button pushing. There’s a text box there. Gotta fill it, right?

Now, about that whole loss of context thing? Yes. That sucks. We’ve adopted a diet of breadcrumbs rather than full, proper meals. No suggestions for this. Lots of people are feeble. The only suggestion I have is to make really good bread. (These people I’m unfairly calling feeble did sit through all 86 hours of the Soprano’s, after all.)

All I know is that the more minutiae we’re bombarded with, the poorer decisions we make. And to me, that is the real tragedy.

The guy was just falling. Forever, it seemed like. I had just turned on the television and all I could see was a blue expanse with a silhouetted figure free-falling and careening towards some sort of unknown end. It was terrifying; it was kind of exhilirating. And my five-year-old brain couldn’t comprehend it. I was staying with my grandmother for the afternoon, and she had left to go around the corner to pick up a few things at the grocery store for dinner. I’d be alone, but I was glued. I’d be fine.

I became tense, mostly because nothing changed. Seconds later, he was still falling. How far up was he? How would it end? If you’re five, everything is new, and there’s no frame of reference for how the world works. It’s like a dark hallway: you can only see 4 steps in front of you. You’re too naive to be terrified; you’re just curious. There isn’t a left or right in a hallway, only forward, so you just keep moving.

Just then, in a fit, a large, parachute bounded out of a backpack in an explosion of color. Reds, yellows, purples and oranges to save the day. A free fall turned into a graceful descending swing from the left side of my screen to the right. He was safe. I saw the thrill, the freedom and the grace. I wanted that.

All I needed was a parachute and some where high. It seemed to me that a garbage bag would make a perfectly good parachute. And that, to me, the top of my family’s conversion van was high enough to get the job done. I put my foot up on the back bumper and managed to writhe my way to the top of the van. I looked down and it looked like forever. I carefully unfolded my trash bag and opened it. The voice on the television told me that it’s never good if the cords of the parachute get tangled. I closed my eyes, lifted my chin with the dignity of an adventurer and leapt.

I received none of the beauty and grace that I witnessed on the television. Thud. A shock up both legs. Pins and needles in my feet for about 2 hours.

This was a formative experience for me. It’s not because I tried something and failed. This experience is special to me because I climbed back up onto the van and tried again. After the second time, I stayed sprawled on the ground like a starfish. My older self wants to believe I was relishing the quiet dignity of trying and failing. I probably just had the wind out of me. I had lost my breath in the hope of something marvelous. And that’s where my grandmother found me.

Maybe I’m pig-headed. Or under-educated in physics. I’m five times older now, and my heart still believes that the scheme could work. I’m still in that hallway bounding towards the other side. Every movement is positive, simply because it’s movement. And I keep going because a part of me still believes that I can connect things and make the beautiful things I see true. I close my eyes and lift my chin.