In a World That Moves Faster, the Art of Making Slowly?

Recently, I developed this weird obsession with chessboards.

I would go to Amazon and Flipkart looking at different chessboards. Then I started researching them and watching videos of how they are made, and how difficult it is to carve the knight.

I became so intrigued by the process that I started looking into the different types of wood used to make them, such as rosewood and maple. I realised that the type of wood, the craftsmanship, even the way the knight is made can determine the price of a chessboard. The knight, being one of the hardest pieces to carve, particularly caught my attention.

The more I watched and learned, the more I began to appreciate the value of things. Owning one of those beautifully crafted rosewood chessboards would make it one of my prized possessions.

You can always buy a plastic chessboard, or a slightly more expensive one, but it will never be as good as a wooden one, right?

And that got me thinking about the value of things made by humans.

There is something about these objects that goes beyond their material or purpose. It is the human connection, the human perspective, and the human story behind them.

Every curve, every cut, every scrape, and every mistake has a story behind it. Someone has spent hours carving that knight, learning the craft, understanding how to shape it, and working on the details. The time spent carving it belongs to a particular day and a particular moment in that person’s life. Every stage of the process becomes part of their experience and memory.

Things built in haste often collapse in haste.

We can create things faster than ever before, but the speed at which something is made doesn’t necessarily determine its value.

Because of this tsunami of content, data and products being thrown at us, it is becoming difficult to discover the real art that’s buried beneath everything else. The people who have spent years developing their skills and ideas often struggle to get the attention their work deserves.

Inspiration, at least to me, comes from ideas you hear in different people, places, books, experiences, and conversations. Sometimes it takes years of understanding and experimentation before an idea becomes something tangible. That’s how we come up with original ideas. And I miss the times when people actually showcased their content and their ideas.

A recent conversation with two of my friends, both software engineers, brought this concern closer to home. They told me it had taken them years of hard work, learning and sleepless nights to understand the concepts they know today and to be where they are right now. Listening to them, I’ve come to understand that many feel the same way. Now they are watching things that took them years to master being done in haste, and the value of their work going under.

When industrialisation changed the way things were made, many livelihoods and businesses were affected. Machines made it possible to make things faster and cheaper. Yet many of the things people hold dear in their lives are handmade and handcrafted, made by the human mind. They come after hours of sitting alone, doing research, learning from different places, and bringing all those ideas together into one whole idea that you could be working on your entire life.

I believe something similar will happen in the age of AI.

AI may take over many jobs and change the way we create things, but I strongly believe that human-made work will continue to hold its value. The time, effort, experience and story behind something should not be overlooked just because something similar can be done faster and more cheaply.

Just like a handcrafted chessboard, something made through years of learning and hard work carries a value of its own. It is about appreciating the person behind the creation and the work that went into it.

This is my first Substack. If you enjoyed reading it, I’d love to hear your thoughts.