It's all clay

Everything around you was made up by people no smarter than you.

I often have to remind myself this.

It’s all made up.

Laws, money, companies, political parties, rules — they only work if everyone believes in them. And if enough people lose faith, it all collapses.

What’s a bank run? It’s when enough people lose faith in the bank to keep their funds secure. And if enough people lose faith, the bank actually loses its ability to keep their funds secure.

The same goes for technology. Things that exist today weren’t always this way. They only exist because someone else took the time to make them. They didn’t just pop out of thin air.

Which means that if there’s something we don’t like, we have the power to change it.

Apple recently published Make Something Wonderful — a collection of Steve Jobs’s philosophies and quotes. It’s an incredible read, and sheds light into so many different aspects of his personality.

I’ve highlighted so many passages in that book, but this one resonates deeply:

“Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.”

So powerful.

It’s why I want my kids to learn how to build things.
I want them to be curious. I want them to question why things are the way they are.
I want them to take things apart, and put them back together.

It could be anything — a radio, a phone, a chair, a table.
I just want them to realize that things they take for granted exist because someone else made them, and that they have agency over their lives and their situations.

Their environment is malleable.

Just like the Playdoh they grew up playing with, their world can be probed, nudged, and massaged into providing a better outcome for them.

So if they end up in situations that they don’t like, their first instinct shouldn’t be to accept things as-is and call it fate.

Instead, I hope that they treat it like clay and try their best to find ways to change it.

And maybe it will.