I spent about three hours last night scrolling through videos of other people making things. It is a strange habit we have developed, isn’t it? I sat there, slumped on the sofa, watching a woman in Vermont bake sourdough and a guy in Japan restore a rusted-out chef’s knife. By the time I finally put the phone down, my eyes were burning, my neck was stiff, and I felt—oddly enough—like I’d done absolutely nothing. Because I hadn’t.
It’s a peculiar kind of exhaustion. We are more “connected” and “informed” than any generation in history, yet I think we are also the most restless. We’re constantly consuming the end product of someone else’s effort without ever feeling the grit of the process ourselves. I’ve started calling it “the spectator’s fatigue.” We watch the craft, we admire the result, but our own hands stay clean, soft, and bored. And I really think that’s why so many of us feel a bit hollow lately.
A few months ago, I decided I’d had enough of it. I went out to the garage, found an old, wobbly wooden chair that had been gathering dust, and decided I was going to fix it. Not because I’m a carpenter—I’m definitely not—but because I needed to feel something that wasn’t a glass screen. I needed to see a problem that I couldn’t solve with a double-tap or a refresh button.
The invisible toll of the digital world
We weren’t really built for this. For millions of years, the human brain and the human hand were in a constant, intimate dialogue. We survived by manipulating the world around us—sharpening stones, weaving fibers, tilling soil. Our nervous systems are literally wired to find satisfaction in physical manipulation. When we strip that away and replace it with clicking and swiping, something in our wiring starts to fray.
I’ve noticed that when I spend too much time in the digital “cloud,” my sense of time gets warped. Hours disappear into a blur of content. But when you’re doing something physical—say, kneading bread or trying to get a screw to catch in a piece of stubborn oak—time feels different. It feels heavy. It feels real. You’re forced to be present because if you aren’t, you’ll burn the loaf or strip the screw. There is a weight to the physical world that forces us to slow down, and I think that slowness is exactly what we’re starving for.
It’s not just about “productivity,” either. In fact, I’d argue it’s the opposite. The digital world is obsessed with efficiency. How fast can you get this done? How many likes can you get? Physical hobbies are often gloriously inefficient. It might take you four hours to cook a proper ragu that disappears in twenty minutes. It might take a month to knit a scarf you could buy for ten dollars at the mall. But that inefficiency is the point. It’s a rebellion against the clock.
The beauty of being a beginner again
One of the biggest hurdles I see—and I struggled with this too—is the fear of being bad at things. We live in an era of curated perfection. We see the “after” photo of a home renovation or the perfectly plated meal, and we feel like if we can’t do it at that level immediately, there’s no point in trying. We’ve forgotten how to be “amateurs.”
The word “amateur” actually comes from the Latin amator, which means “lover.” An amateur is someone who does something for the love of it, not for the paycheck or the prestige. Somewhere along the way, we started treating hobbies like side hustles. We feel this pressure to monetize our joy. If you’re good at baking, you should start a bakery. If you’re good at painting, you should sell on Etsy.
Honestly? That’s a trap. As soon as you turn your hobby into a job, the pressure of the result kills the joy of the process. I’ve learned to embrace the fact that the chair I fixed is still a little bit wobbly. The finish isn’t perfect. There’s a drip of varnish on the left leg that only I can see. But I love that chair more than any piece of furniture I’ve ever bought because I know every inch of it. I know the frustration of the sanding and the satisfaction of the first coat of oil. Being a beginner is a gift because it frees you from the burden of expectation.
Small ways to start using your hands
- Start a kitchen garden: Even just a single pot of basil on a windowsill. There is something deeply grounding about watching a seed turn into food.
- Learn basic mending: Don’t throw away that shirt with the hole in the pocket. Buy a needle and thread. It’s a quiet, meditative way to spend twenty minutes.
- Cooking from scratch: Pick one meal a week where you don’t use anything pre-made. Chop the vegetables, make the sauce, feel the ingredients.
- Woodworking or whittling: It sounds intimidating, but you can start with a simple kit or even just a piece of soft wood and a pocketknife.
Tactile feedback and mental health
I’m not a doctor, but I know how I feel. When I’m working with my hands, the “chatter” in my brain seems to quiet down. You know that voice? The one that’s constantly worrying about tomorrow’s emails or that awkward thing you said in 2014? That voice can’t multitask. If you’re focused on the tension of a saw blade or the texture of clay, there just isn’t room for the ruminating thoughts. It’s a form of active meditation.
There is also something to be said for the “tangible result.” In most modern jobs, we produce things that are invisible. We produce emails, spreadsheets, code, or “strategies.” At the end of the day, we have nothing to show for our labor other than a cleared inbox (and even that is temporary). But when you build a birdhouse, or bake a pie, or fix a leaky faucet, the result exists in the physical world. You can touch it. You can see it. It provides a sense of agency—the feeling that you can actually affect the world around you—that is incredibly empowering.
I remember a friend of mine who was going through a really rough patch at work. He felt like he was just a cog in a machine that didn’t care about him. He started taking pottery classes. He’d come home covered in gray sludge, looking exhausted but genuinely happy. He told me, “In the office, everything is a compromise. But with the clay, it’s just me. If the bowl collapses, it’s because I pushed too hard. If it’s beautiful, it’s because I stayed focused. It’s honest.”
Getting over the “I don’t have time” excuse
We all say it. I say it constantly. “I’d love to take up gardening, but I just don’t have the time.” But then I check my screen time report on my phone and realize I spent nine hours last week looking at memes and news headlines that I’ve already forgotten. The time is there; it’s just being leaked out in small, invisible drips.
The trick isn’t to find a four-hour block of time to become a master craftsman. The trick is to find twenty minutes. Spend twenty minutes drawing in a sketchbook while the coffee brews. Spend ten minutes pulling weeds before you head to work. It’s about reintegrating the physical into the margins of your life. It shouldn’t feel like another “to-do” item on your list. It should feel like a relief.
And don’t go out and buy a thousand dollars worth of equipment right away. That’s just another form of consumption. Start with the bare minimum. If you want to paint, buy a cheap set of watercolors and some paper. If you want to garden, buy a bag of soil and some seeds. The gear doesn’t make the hobby; the engagement does. In fact, having less gear often forces you to be more creative and more connected to what you’re doing.
The quiet joy of the process
Lately, I’ve been spending my Saturday mornings in the garden. I’m not very good at it. Half the things I plant end up being eaten by slugs or just refusing to grow out of sheer spite. But I’ve found that I don’t really mind. I like the feeling of the sun on my back. I like the smell of damp earth. I like the way my hands feel slightly rough at the end of the day.
There’s a specific kind of silence that happens when you’re absorbed in a physical task. It’s not a hollow silence; it’s a full one. It’s the sound of your own breath, the scrape of a tool, the wind in the trees. It’s a reminder that we are physical creatures living in a physical world. We aren’t just brains in jars, and we aren’t just data points for a social media algorithm.
If you’re feeling burnt out, or anxious, or just plain bored with the state of things, I’d encourage you to go find something to break. Or fix. Or build. Get your hands dirty. Make something that serves no purpose other than to exist. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It doesn’t even have to be “good.” It just has to be yours.
Maybe start small. Tonight, instead of picking up the phone to see what everyone else is doing, pick up something real. See where it takes you. You might find that the thing you’ve been missing isn’t “more content,” but the simple, quiet satisfaction of being a participant in your own life.
It’s a long road back to ourselves, but I think our hands know the way. We just have to give them something to do.