TED Ed Talk: Making is better than Consuming!

Last week when I went to my friend’s house, I was served a delightful mug cake. I thoroughly enjoyed eating it not because it tasted awesome. But, because I knew what kind of flour was used, how much sugar was put and the quantity of chocolate syrup used. I could sincerely appreciate the effort that was put by my friend’s mother in making it because I had made one myself :).

My father always says that ”Making is better than consuming”. He says that making is an active process where we are equally involved, however, as a consumer, we are just passive witnesses. 

What is making anyway or who is a maker for that matter? Making is when you create something, and there is a maker in each one of us. Makers are also consumers but for me and every curious maker in this world, the definition of consumer is someone who blindly consumes things that go in junk after a few months as they are not emotionally involved in creating it. So for the context of this talk, I will call people like myself as MakerConsumers and others as consumers. And in this talk, I will like to make a case that that the Makers have more fulfilling experiences of life than mere consumers even when it comes to consuming — and below you can find the whys?

Makers embrace who they truly are and liberate themselves in the process

My earliest memories of MakerConsumers has been when I was four. It was watching the animated Disney movie called Tinkerbell, she was a tinkerer and in the beginning, she hated it but when she found the beauty and how special it is, she embraced it. This honest acceptance freed her and she did not end up becoming football of other’s opinions. However, if you notice the mere consumers, they need all the dresses, the shoes, or whatnot as their self-esteem is a function of others' approval. 

Only Consuming can be both expensive and lazy 

I have seen a lot of consumers they tend to be passive about their choices and life. For them anything and everything is about buying - they are all about things and not experiences a boring place to be. Consuming can be fairly expensive. 

I was in London recently and I bought some spare parts to make a Robot - I called it Marty. The spares came as cheap as 50 pounds, however, if the ready-made model was 200 pounds. Although I spent a lot of time making Marty, I learned about servos, sensors, nuts, and bolts, and what not during the process and I did not mind getting richer by 150 pounds as well :) 

I would like to end it with a quote:

We are born makers! 

We move what we care about from our heads to our hearts through our hands