There's publishings out there saying we live in a throw-away-I-want-it-now culture. They're probably right.
I fall into that pit from time to time. I've been known to go to the store for something I need simply because I'd rather not wait the week for free shipping to delivery my item.
But, the majority of the time, I love the idea of fixing, rebuilding, and manufacturing my own things. I've rebuilt car engines, replaced a scratched camera lens on my old iPhone, built my own computers, and, mostly because of my job, coded my own web things.
Building is power {#buildingispower}
Building your own thing is empowering, fun, and challenging. It's the complete opposite of the instant gratification culture, but the payback is ten times better.
The engine I rebuilt is still running. It wasn't easy. Some days I was cursing the engineers who designed it. Other days were full of heavy work. But the day I inserted the key to start the engine... oh wow... it was amazing. I was scared as hell to turn the key but when I did and the engine came back to life... I never felt so powerful.
If I could rebuild an engine, a precision machine with high tolerances, I could do anything.
ANYTHING.
Build for building's sake {#buildforbuildingssake}
I love photography, so I'm building my own photo blogging page (mainly because I prefer control over my photos but also for fun). I love audio so I've started to research how to build my own headphones. Will I finish these projects? Who knows. Finishing isn't always the point, though.
Build something just to build it. You might find you're not liking where your build is going. Or, maybe you need some resource you don't have access to. It is always ok to stop a project so long as you learned something new.
So, get out there and build something, anything!