The Courage to Make, Not Just Admire

I’ll proudly discuss the books I’ve read, films I’ve analyzed, music I appreciate with sophisticated taste. But mention a poem I wrote, a painting I attempted, a song I hummed while walking—suddenly I’m defensive, apologetic, embarrassed by my amateur attempts at the very activities I celebrate when done by others.

Consumption requires no vulnerability while creation exposes everything.

When I recommend a movie, I share the director’s talent, not my own judgment. When I share my writing, I reveal my limitations, my inexperience, my audacity to think I have something worth expressing. It’s safer to be a curator of others’ genius than to risk exposing our own mediocrity.

Happy hangs store-bought art on our walls without shame but hides the watercolors she painted during her brief artistic phase. We frame others’ mass-produced beauty while keeping our authentic attempts in closets, as if personal creation were something to be ashamed of rather than celebrated.

We’ve been taught that taste matters more than expression, that discernment is more valuable than participation. Being a sophisticated consumer earns social respect; being an amateur creator invites judgment about skill, technique, worthiness.

But consumption is passive while creation is active. Appreciating art requires developed taste; making art requires developed courage. One engages our minds; the other exposes our souls.

The irony cuts deep: we’re proud of our ability to recognize greatness in others but embarrassed by our attempts to create something ourselves, as if the world needs more critics and fewer participants, more appreciation and less expression.

Perhaps the real sophistication lies not in curating beauty but in creating it, regardless of skill level—honoring the impulse to make something rather than just consume something.