My Life of Creating Something Out of Nothing At All!

I found myself pausing to reflect on the things I have chosen to do in this life, and called "working," for better or for worse.

"Useful things!"

Whereas I likely have had at least a passing awareness of it, I haven't ever seriously considered the fact that I have invariably been drawn to endeavors that involved/involve the process of "turning nothing at all into SOMETHING."

This afternoon, I spent some time with my artwork, which consists of painting intricate patterns on stones I find on our local beaches. I mean... how often do people look at a pile of stones on a beach and see them as "something of value?"

And yet, that has been my primary artistic/creative pursuit for about a decade and a half. I have — quite literally — sold thousands of them, online and at arts and crafts shows.

Painted stones, after I have worked on them!

Found Objects

In 2006, I discovered that it was possible for me to wander our local beaches here and pick up various things and actually sell them to jewelry makers, artists and craftspeople all around the world.

Lots of artists work with "found objects" but are far more interested in actually creating than in spending the time to "source" their raw materials, themselves. That turned into an eBay business of selling anything from sorted and graded pieces of driftwood, to old sea glass and pottery, to shells and more.

That business isn't doing as well as it once was because of competition from SE Asia where things are "manufactured" to look old and beach combed and sold for a tiny fraction of the cost of "the real thing."

So it goes, I have learned!

Words, Words, Words...

If you think about it, the sort of writing we do here on Steemit is also about "turning nothing into something."

Historically, web content has been deemed to have very little value, yet we have created a model here where people's written and image content actually has some value. And isn't that a marvelous thing!

I submitted my very first written story for publication in 1981, and all I was rewarded with for that was basically "a pat on the back" and a mention in the magazine that ran the story. Even though what I created was essentially "valuable enough" to command space in a magazine with 300,000 subscribers, it was a free "for the exposure" situation.

I'm glad things have changed — at least somewhat — since then!

A very old US parcel post stamp from 1913

Tiny Pieces of Paper!

Although not entirely nothing, one of my other home businesses is about selling old postage stamps to collectors... something I've been doing on-and-off since 1988.

I say not entirely nothing because I do pay maybe $50 or $100 for a box of someone's old stamp collections at an estate sale... but then I sort out everything in the boxes and present it in such a way it starts to have value to stamp collectors.

I suppose you could say that the "value" comes in the form of the knowledge I have accumulated over the course of my life, enabling me to recognize the unusual in a large pile of the ordinary... and then the knowledge of how to profit from that.

That's FOOD you're looking at!

Berries, Nuts and Mushrooms!

Even when I was a kid of no more than maybe eight or nine, I was walking a version of this path.

Rather than put a lot of effort into actual work — like mowing lawns — I would use my eyes and sense of direction (and a lot of patience!) in our local forests to find various kinds of foods that were typically too rare, or too time consuming to find, or somehow otherwise "scarce but desirable" and sell it to people in our local area.

And it wasn't really a case of people "taking pity on an enterprising kid," because I was actually offering things that would cost an arm and a leg at local shops WHEN/IF you could actually get them... and mine was fresher and less expensive.

During wild mushroom season, I found it very appealing that I could walk in the woods for five hours and end up with the equivalent of $50 in my pocket. $50 was a lot of money to a kid, in the 1970s!

I am very grateful that I have been able to leverage my general interest in "finding things" into a living of sorts, or at least a significant sideline income. It's good to have something that does not put you at the mercy of some ornery employer!

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great weekend!

How about you? Have you ever turned a hobby or interest into your work? Do you have a particular talent or ability you've thought about taking beyond hobby level? Leave a comment if you feel so inclined — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

(All text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is ORIGINAL CONTENT, created expressly for this platform — Not posted elsewhere!)

Created at 2024.02.23 23:08PST
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