My 17-year old was bent over the patio table outside, with two friends, well after midnight. Nothing unusual in that – they joke around, they eat and drink. Mostly, they chat and listen to music, sometimes gathered around a laptop.
Surprise, surprise
Last night I was curious. I wanted to know what they were doing, specifically. I peered out my window and squinted into the dark.
Video games I thought, or a movie. I was wrong on both counts.
I could see them by the flickering light of the citronella candles. And hear them. One of the teenagers appeared to be playing a mandolin. A second was on the harmonica. My son had his flute to his lips, something I haven’t seen in a year. The three were filling the night with music along with sound effects from the computer, and they were recording as they went.
I listened for awhile, both relieved and surprised. They were making something.
What did I make yesterday?
Yesterday morning I strung words together quickly, on a virtual page. Then I ran errands, visited sites and blogs in the afternoon, moved on to Twitter to send out links, and also to listen to happenings of interest.
I took care of the dog. I made dinner. I wrote some more, spoke on the phone, wrote awhile longer, after.
Is dinner the only tangible thing I made, and what was there to show for it after, except dirty dishes?
What do we build?
Eight plus years ago I helped design systems. I couldn’t hold them in my hands, but I felt like I was making something, part of creating a necessary service, in a service economy.
Twelve years ago we renovated our modest home, expanding it from two to three bedrooms, with a small den. I followed the construction with fascination. Even living in the midst of mess and workers and interruptions, I loved the process: the smell of plywood, the sound of rain on the tarp, even the jarring noise of nail guns as I worked from my home office. It all felt hopeful, somehow. Building is a commitment to the future.
Three years later my marriage was over and the house on the market, but the echo of satisfaction remained. It was a better house. Solid and well built. I had been part of that.
Relationships and virtual bridges 
So what do you think?
- If I build a friendship in partnership with another through social media, does that count?
- If I build a “network” – a professional community – does that count?
- If I write, and I touch a life with a moment of amusement, recognition, or information, does that count?
Is this the value of social media? How does it compare to the printed word, the face-to-face encounter? Is it making something – or should we use another measure of contribution?
When I wrote for print, I was able to hold a newspaper in my hands and see the product of my contribution. I knew it was read over someone’s morning coffee, that it was clipped for someone’s scrapbook, that my words became part of “the permanent record.”
When I freelanced for a magazine, six months after turning in copy, I went to the bookstore, purchased the periodical, and held it in my hands, to feel the paper, smell the pages, see my words. I was part of making something.
And now?
What are we really building here? Are we all so much chatter, to fill time, and to ease our isolation?
What are we building? The question is well phrased because as white-collar “thinker” types, we work in very different fields from the classical sense of builders. We’re not taming the frontier, raising barns, quilting, constructing something tangible in a blue-collar, iron shavings on the forearms sense of building.
But we’re still making things through blogs, essays, families and anything else we do that expresses our thoughts and yearnings. Everything you mentioned — friendships, networks, writing (even a shoe collection) — counts because they are all important to you. You’re constructing what has meaning to you, and that’s what matters. Whether online or in another format, you can see what you’ve built, bit by bit.
Maybe the key differentiator between this and time-killing busy-work is mindfulness. If you’re expressing your yearnings and look at a piece you’ve written or a network and think, “This matters to me. This captures a part of me,” then that’s a mindful activity. If you’re just blasting out words or doing things to keep from contemplating the abyss, then the motivation is more mindless — you’re busy to keep from doing or thinking something more relevant.
So: go forth and build what matters to you. Right here.