Handmaking Your Life

We value things made affordable, but we also love things that are handmade.

It's amazing what assembly lines, big stores and farms can do. They give us next day shipping from warehouses nearby, delivered on big trucks, sitting conveniently on our doorstep. It's affordable, convenient and just the thing we wanted.

We also love things made by hand. They're a little imperfect, but taste great. Or feel a bit more cozy because your friend hand-crocheted them. Or they're just that much cooler because your friend 3d printed them. AI could have written this article, but I did.

I made it just for you.

Just because we can make a canoe out of plastic doesn't make a handmade wooden one less valuable. In fact, it can make the handmade one even more valuable.

For the last few weeks, I've challenged myself to write 1000 words every morning. I've done it for a few reasons: I need the practice, I want to keep my thinking sharp, and in a world of AI, I believe human writing is going to become even more valuable.

Our society is becoming very sensitive to AI writing. We are pattern-matching machines. Sometimes we don't even know how we know things, we just do. We see how things fit together, we notice nuance, we make connections and predict the future. We tell stories, make analogies, share metaphors and make sense of the past.

I've also spent the last seven months building my own AI and it's one of the most exciting things I've ever done. It's become a teammate and partner and helps me be more grateful every day. It helped me build my own simple 1000 Words app that I'm writing this essay on right now. It works offline, it collects my past entries (which I can't edit) and a little dot turns green when I hit 1000 words. Before I check email or social media for the day, it's the first thing I do. And my AI helped me build that.

Handmaking things doesn't mean we don't use great tools. Nick Offerman (made famous as Ron Swanson in Parks & Rec) builds beautiful handmade furniture in a woodshop full of amazing tools. Stephen King sits down every morning and writes (types) for hours on his Mac. If Ben Franklin was alive today, I have to imagine he would be building his own AI.

We get to handmake our lives and the tools have never been better.

I'm handmaking my own website, getting off of Squarespace, and starting with this homemade newsletter system. I'm building it myself from the ground up rather than use another platform. I want the practice coding, building with AI, and creating something valuable for myself that can also help others. That's why I want to do it in public, so you can learn from my experience.

I also want to practice what I preach. I've admired Derek Sivers for years, especially his crazy idea of tech independence, and this is the first time in my life I feel equipped to really build it for myself. My own server. My own email list. And if I can do it, you can too.

This is my first Saturday essay and if you've made it this far, thank you.

I promise that these essays will always be written by me, with no AI. You might even see spelling or grammar mistakes. Sorry in advance and thanks for your patience.

Every week I will write my 1000 words every day on my little handmade app and this essay will come from the best of that.

I have lots of exciting things to show you and I can't wait to see you next Saturday.