Consume v Create

Author’s note: Welcome to Edition 10. I write about navigating the balance between consumption and creation in your personal life. Please lmk your thoughts about this essay. I also write a second newsletter with in-depth commentary on how new-age Indian businesses make money (Newsletter link here).

‘Be relentless. Slow down. Hustle. Relax. Make a move. Sit still. You’re going too fast. You’re not going fast enough. Every second counts. Measure yourself over decades.’

These conflicting viewpoints can run/ruin your life. Be intentional about pursuing a balance. Consumption and creation occupy your hours and these hours make up your life. These two vectors determine how you spend your time, in fulfilling or futile ways.

You consume text messages, emails, books, podcasts, and images & videos of friends and strangers. Every day, you occupy yourself with the thoughts and beliefs of others. Their view of the world overwhelms your worldview. Their morality impinges upon yours. Your opinions are diverse and conflicted and change at the swipe of a screen. There is a channel for everything and a loudspeaker for everyone. You listen to everyone all the time. It never stops.

On the flip side, paywalls cannot contain your appetite. If you are hungry to learn, the internet offers boundless knowledge and limitless slop. You can access anything at any time without restraint. If all you do is access everything made by everyone anywhere, what is your role?

You have to balance consumption with creation. Set aside time and energy to create through ideas, art, products and services. Allow yourself the grace to create and believe that what you create has value. The audience starts with a single person- you as a creator-consumer. If it is good enough for you, it is of value to the world.

The joy derived from creation is unparallelled. It fulfills you and fuels you to keep going. Beyond external expectations, this joy is the strongest signal to continue on this path. When you put yourself out in the world in any form, it changes your world and of those around you. This worldview only stems from creation, and not from consumption. 

As you pursue a balance between creation and consumption, reflect on what truly matters to you. Consumption does not fundamentally change you because you have not gone through the process of creation. You are an onlooker, a bystander, a passerby, and an armchair activist.

Your emotions are borrowed, sense of injustice leased and contempt misplaced. You do not view life through the largest aperture, but through the tiniest eyehole in a door. It is not the fullest picture of life, just an outtake.

If you are okay with that microcosm of life, continue unfettered on the path of consumption. Not every experience needs to be felt viscerally and there is wisdom in bypassing the many travails of life. You may not feel the most, but you will witness every season without the accompanying discomfort. Create or consume, go decide for yourself.