# Why build anything, when you can build everything?

It's been a while so bear with me while my brain loads.

## Does it have to feel hard?

Ponder this for a moment. Think of the most meaningful things you've ever achieved, things that if I stripped all titles from you, you'd use to answer the question 'Who are you?', get a clear image in mind. Alright, having thought of them, the following question should feel obvious 'Did they feel hard to do in the moment?' -- evidently. But why?  Why, first of all, could you answer this so fast, you didn't stop to think, it was obvious they were hard. Because otherwise, how could they define you, shape you if they weren't? How could a strong person be shaped by easy things? It couldn't, or could it? Would they still be strong then or just...average? If you were hoping for a conclusion, by the end of this paragraph, I'm sorry but I'll have to let you down.

### But they were hard!

Yes, yes they were. For that version of you, of course. They probably wouldn't for you now though? Regardless, I think we can agree there's no such thing as 'objectively hard', for me it's incredibly hard to hit a good serve in tennis, for Federer, I'd doubt it, not because he was born with that, it was much harder for him for a much longer time than I was even willing to try, such that now it's only hard for me not for him. Thus, it'd be a reasonable thing to sketch that, for a thing to matter, it has to feel hard. At least temporarily.

Then, there's the social aspect to it. We have to remember after all, we are tribal animals, driven by status. If something was generally perceived as 'hard' - hunting, fighting in war, more recently, making a lot of money - achieving that thing, beyond what it meant to us internally, also meant something externally. Something that messed with some of our most primal controls, it brought the most universal currency, exchangeable for virtually anything - status.

### Then it's settled

It's a self-enforcing loop - do a hard thing, gain status, enjoy/consume, do another hard thing. So, why doesn't everybody do it if it's so simple? You may have been able to spot yourself the first reason, it's not inherently natural to enter the loop, you have to give before you can take, you have to trust. Who? Well that's why it's hard to trust, some would turn towards divinity, and say you have to trust God. I agree, you have to trust God, but... But God trusted you when it gave you the image of the hard thing in your mind first, so if the supreme Being, trusted you, why don't you? Why don't you trust yourself? 

And then, there is the second thing that stops this from being a true loop, a loop has to stay in motion, always, a state has to guide naturally to the next, otherwise it stops. This 'loop' plateaus - when you get to 'enjoy/consume', you stop, afterall why go through hardship again if it's not absolutely needed, it's almost like you need to pass the entry bridge again, and that was, well, hard.

## What happens when it's not hard anymore?

Imagine this, you spend years mastering something, you feel like you get it to a point most will never be able to comprehend, your brain finds optimization paths and questions the very basics of the skill. At what point did it stop being hard and start being 'natural', because, yes, externally some of that stuff looked difficult, but deep down, you know it wasn't, because to you it felt easy, you didn't struggle, you plateaued, and frankly, perhaps you were never going to get out of that plateau, it felt like a safe path. Now picture this, suddenly, almost overnight, that skill collapsed, people who never touched that skill before now could do what took you years to learn. And just like that, the safe path was no longer acceptable, or rather, it never was, your heart, the same one that drew you to the hard thing in the first place, was never happy once the thing wasn't hard anymore.

Perhaps you already know what I'm talking about, perhaps you're reading this so far into the future you don't, or perhaps nobody ever reads it to guess apart from me. Regardless, naming it directly would feel like a betrayal. So I'll just say this:

## Why build anything, when everyone can build everything?

You just have to type it or speak it, and now, you can build it. No learning, no struggling, no 'torture', you just describe it and it exists. 

But do an imagination exercise with me for a second, what if you could describe the exact muscles, body structure, athletic activities you want, just write them down, go to sleep, and wake up having them. Magical right? You'd trade anything for that. So you wake up with your dream body, now what? Do you know what to feed it? Do you know what it needs? Do you even know how to use it to its fullest now? 

Is it even **your** body anymore? Truth is, you'd probably lose it just as fast as you gained it. Because it's not the results that make you, it's not the wins, it's the losses, the self correction, the driving of new neural pathways in place of the old ones.

So, how is building any different? It's not. Everyone can build everything. But to build you must first think, and frankly, nobody can think of everything, and lately, sadly, fewer and fewer can think of anything.

## Closing

I'm not sure if this is supposed to feel motivating, dooming, crazy, funny, or a bit of all. But, I am sure of one thing, I am going to build, not because it's easy, because it's hard. If you understood this, you should go build too, this place needs it.

Writing this was hard, precisely because I had no finishing point in mind, but that's also exactly why I believe, it mattered to me, mattered enough to be written.