Reframe Your Reason for Making Things When Someone Asks Why You Bother

The question comes from someone who is genuinely curious and you say 'I just enjoy it' and it is true but it sounds like nothing. Or you reach for the version about meaning and contribution and it sounds like you are giving a TED talk about making greeting cards. The honest answer is somewhere between the two and it is specific to you and your practice and what keeps you coming back to it. This finds it.

Someone has asked me why I make things and I did not have a good answer. Help me find one. My creative practice is [describe it: what you make, how long you have been doing it, and whether it is your main thing or something you do alongside other work]. The question 'why do you bother' tends to catch me off guard because the obvious answers feel either too small (because I enjoy it) or too large (to say something meaningful). Help me understand: what my actual reason is based on how I have described the practice, what the honest version of the answer is that neither undersells nor overstates, and a short version of it I could say to someone who asked genuinely.