The many meanings of "make" all lead back to this: you make yourself
We'll open this post with a quote from W. B. Yeats, my favourite poet: The friends that have it I do wrong Whenever I remake a song Should know what issue is at stake, It is myself that I remake. The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats , II, preliminary poem (1908) What does it mean to make something? The Oxford Online dictionary lists 13 different meanings for this one little word (one of the 1000 most used words in the language). That's a hint: this word is important (and "make" doesn't always make sense, but it does always make a difference.) You can make a bed without creating one. You can make a change or a mess or a mistake (and sometimes have a hard time knowing which it is). You can make art or make things happen or make yourself go there. But whenever you make anything, you become a cause of something and not an effect. Making matters because when we make, we are active in the world. Whenever we are acti...