# Learning to Appreciate Craft

> Trying to make something yourself changes the way you experience it. On struggle, attention, and how learning a craft teaches us to appreciate the work behind what we love.

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Content type: essay
Published: 2026-08-11
Author: [Philip Langenbrink](https://nested.blog/authors/philip)
Section: Curiosity in Practice
Tags: Opinion, Curiosity in Practice

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## Content

I am an avid fan of various types of music. According to Spotify, I listen to over 120,000 minutes of music per year. Since I mainly listen to electronic music, I started DJing in 2023 and eventually wanted to try making music myself.

I watched various tutorials, followed along, and tried to make something that sounded somewhat nice. It was a tedious process, and eventually I decided to stick with DJing.

In retrospect, however, I noticed something. The experience humbled me in the best way possible: trying to make music taught me to appreciate something I already loved much more deeply.

### Consuming teaches taste, making teaches the cost of it

As a consumer, you can judge whether something is good or bad almost instantly, but that judgement is often relatively shallow. You experience the finished result without seeing what actually produced it or understanding the process behind it.

Trying to make something yourself forces you to confront the real decisions involved. You begin to see the process, the effort, and the countless small choices behind a piece of work. Every trade-off you suddenly have to make was invisible to you before.

And this is what begins to close the gap between “I know what I like” and “I understand what makes it good”. The difference becomes painfully obvious once you are responsible for making those decisions yourself.

### The permanent shift in noticing

Once you begin to struggle with a craft yourself, you can’t consume it in quite the same way again. Previously unnoticed details become much more apparent, even when you are not actively looking for them.

While listening to one of my favourite songs, *Glue* by Bicep, I started to notice why I liked it rather than simply knowing that it sounded good to me. I became more aware of just how carefully the track is constructed.

*Glue* is a relatively monotonous song. It begins with a simple drum pattern, and every few bars, another instrument, texture, or pattern is introduced. The repetition slowly builds anticipation until, at around 2:13, the vocals and a break in that monotony create an almost euphoric release.

Before trying to make music myself, I never consciously noticed details like these. Learning about the decisions behind music made me appreciate a song I already loved a hundred times more.

![Before vs. After](https://nested.blog/posts/embeds/before-after.webp) ([Open image](https://nested.blog/posts/embeds/before-after.webp))

*© nested.blog*

Think of it as installing a new sense, another layer through which you can understand something you already value. Music wasn’t the only place where this stood out to me. I began noticing the same thing with drawing, design, and even writing posts like the one you are reading right now.

The craft had always been there. I had simply learned to notice more of it.

### Struggle matters more than skill

You don’t need to be good at it.

Art and craft can take hundreds or thousands of hours to master, but even investing a small amount of time in understanding something you love can make you appreciate it much more in the long run. You don’t need mastery. You need honest, hands-on contact with the problem.

Your failures map directly onto the choices someone else got right. Bad attempts teach you what good work is fighting against. They reveal why craftsmanship takes time and repetition, why it requires rehearsal, and why making mistakes is an unavoidable part of getting better.

I like to frame it this way: struggle is the tuition you pay for learning what good work actually costs.

Trying a craft yourself can result in two outcomes:

1. You find a new hobby, flourish in it, and maybe eventually become an inspiration for someone else.
2. You deeply internalise how much the craft means to you, how much work exists behind it, and how trying it yourself changes the way you experience it.

Neither outcome requires you to become particularly good. It’s a win-win.

### Conclusion

I mentioned this earlier, but I think it is worth highlighting that none of this applies to only one specific craft. It is something you can experience with almost anything people learn to make.

Music made it particularly obvious to me, but I have experienced the same shift elsewhere. What used to be a simple “I like this” increasingly becomes “This is incredible, and now I understand a little more about why.”

I am not exaggerating when I say that this has positively affected my life. Trying things has made me more attentive to the work around me and more appreciative of skills I previously took for granted.

**Takeaway: **Try making something you usually only consume. Brew coffee. Take a photograph. Design a poster. Bake bread. Make a song. Draw something.  You don't need to become good at it. Pay attention to what becomes difficult.

You don’t have to master everything you try. Try new things, stay curious, and allow yourself to struggle with them for a while. Sometimes, struggling with something yourself is all it takes to see it differently forever.