Rachel: The most creative people aren't waiting for a lightning bolt of inspiration. They're meticulously organizing their screwdrivers. Justine: Hold on, that can't be right. We're sold this image of the tortured artist, the chaotic genius. You're telling me the secret is… tidying up? That sounds suspiciously like something my mom would say. Rachel: It sounds counterintuitive, but it's the entire philosophy behind Every Tool's a Hammer by Adam Savage. And of course, everyone knows Savage from Mythbusters, the guy who blew things up for science. Justine: Right, the beret and the walrus mustache. The master of chaotic experiments. Rachel: Exactly. But what's fascinating, and what he reveals in this book, is that his career wasn't a straight line at all. He was a welder, a model maker for huge films like Star Wars, a graphic designer, a juggler... This book is his attempt to distill the lessons from that winding, hands-on path into a philosophy for anyone who creates anything. And it starts not with a big idea, but with something much more personal. Justine: Okay, I'm intrigued. If it's not about some grand stroke of genius, where on earth do you even begin a creative project?

Rachel: You begin with what he calls your "secret thrills." Those weird, specific, sometimes embarrassing things you are intensely passionate about. The stuff you might not even tell your friends you're into. Justine: Secret thrills. That sounds… slightly illicit. Like collecting stamps of obscure dictators or something. Rachel: It can feel that way! But Savage argues those obsessions are the pure, unfiltered fuel for making. He tells this incredible story from when he was a teenager. He was obsessed with the movie Excalibur and decided he was going to build a full suit of armor out of aluminum and wear it to school for Halloween. Justine: Oh no. I can already feel the secondhand embarrassment. This is going to end badly, isn't it? Rachel: It ends spectacularly badly. He and his dad spend weeks making it. It looks amazing. He gets to school, and immediately realizes the flaw in his plan: he can't sit down. The armor is too rigid. So he has to stand against the wall in every class. Justine: A true knight, stoic and… vertically oriented. Rachel: Until math class. He's standing there, getting hotter and hotter inside this metal shell, and then he just… passes out. Wakes up in the nurse's office, stripped to his underwear, his glorious armor in a heap on the floor. Justine: That is every teenager's worst nightmare. Public failure combined with being in your underwear. A potent combination. Rachel: Exactly. And the next year, he tries again. This time it's Mad Max. He makes a cool, weathered forearm guard—a vambrace. He feels powerful, like a post-apocalyptic warrior. But then a classmate, Aaron, just points at him and mockingly says, "What's that on your arm, Adam?" And the whole illusion shatters. His private enthusiasm was just used as a weapon against him. Justine: Wow. That's brutal. So why is he telling us these stories of profound humiliation? It doesn't exactly make me want to rush out and build something. Rachel: Because that's the point. Making is inherently vulnerable. You're putting a piece of your private, obsessive self out into the world to be judged. But he argues that you have to. That vulnerability, that deep, personal obsession, is what he calls the "gravity of making." It's the force that pulls a project together when things get hard. Without that intense, personal drive, you'll just give up. Justine: Okay, so the weird thing I'm obsessed with isn't a distraction, it's actually the main power source. But what about people who don't 'make' things in a traditional sense? I write code, my friend is an amazing cook. Does this still apply? Rachel: Absolutely. He tells another great story about being at a Maker Faire. A young guy comes up to him and says, "I love all this, but I don't belong here. I don't make things, I just code." And Savage just yells, "CODING IS MAKING!" He defines making as putting something into the world that didn't exist before. A line of code, a recipe, a sentence, a business plan. It's all making. The book is a permission slip to take your secret thrill, whatever it is, and see it as a valid act of creation. Justine: A permission slip. I like that. It reframes it. It's not a weird hobby; it's a creative act. But that gravity of obsession you mentioned… it sounds like it could also create a huge mess. A black hole of half-finished projects and chaos. Rachel: It absolutely can. And that's the paradox that leads us to the most practical, and maybe the most surprising, part of the book: how you actually tame that creative chaos.

Justine: I'm guessing the answer isn't "just be more inspired." Rachel: The answer, believe it or not, is lists. Checklists, to be precise. Justine: Lists! The mortal enemy of creativity! The tool of bureaucrats and project managers. I feel betrayed. Rachel: I know, he felt the same way! He used to think lists were stifling. But then he started a theater company in San Francisco called V MAJEC. He was in charge of building everything—sets, props, lighting. The sheer volume of tasks was completely overwhelming. It felt like this untamable monster. Justine: I know that feeling. When a project is so big you don't even know where to start, so you just… don't. You check your email instead. Rachel: Exactly. So in a moment of desperation, he sat down with a friend and spent six hours making lists. Scene by scene, department by department. Then he consolidated everything onto a single sheet of paper in tiny, tiny writing. And suddenly, the monster was tamed. It wasn't an infinite number of tasks anymore. It was one, single, manageable, albeit long, page. Justine: So the list didn't kill the creativity, it just put a cage around the anxiety. It defined the boundaries of the project. Rachel: Precisely. He says a comprehensive checklist can be both the whip and the chair when you're taming a lion. It gives you control. And this idea of control leads to his single most important piece of advice, which is a fantastic metaphor: "Use More Cooling Fluid." Justine: Use more cooling fluid? What does that even mean? Is this a car maintenance podcast now? Rachel: It comes from a story. When he was sixteen, he got his first cordless drill. He was trying to attach a new rack to his bike, but it didn't fit. He needed to drill a new hole in a metal arm of the rack. He was in a hurry, so instead of clamping it down properly on a workbench, he just held the bike and tried to drill upwards into the piece. Justine: I am not a professional maker, but I can tell you this is a terrible idea. Rachel: A catastrophically bad idea. The drill bit got super hot from the friction, seized up in the metal, and snapped. He was left with a ruined rack, a broken drill bit, and a hardened steel plug exactly where he needed a hole. The project was destroyed. Justine: All because he was impatient. Rachel: Yes. And he realized that if he had just taken two extra minutes to clamp it down and add a drop of cutting fluid—a cooling fluid—to reduce the friction, it would have worked perfectly. "Use More Cooling Fluid" became his mantra for slowing down. It's about reducing the friction in your work and in your life. It means taking the time to prepare, to organize your tools, to make the list, to do all the things that feel like you're not "working" but are actually essential for the work to succeed. Justine: Okay, I love that. It's the antidote to that frantic, hustle-culture energy that tells you to just power through everything. It's like, stop and take a deep breath before sending that angry email. That's your cooling fluid. Rachel: It is! And he has a name for the physical version of this. He calls it "knolling." It's the practice of arranging all your tools and parts at right angles, in neat grids. It's what chefs call "mise en place"—everything in its place. When you do that, you're not just cleaning up; you're taking inventory, you're thinking through the next steps, you're applying cooling fluid to your workspace. Justine: This idea of organizing your tools, your lists… it feels like it's about more than just one project. It's a whole philosophy. It's a way of seeing the world. Rachel: It is. And that's the final piece. It's how this personal philosophy of making extends outward, into your workshop and into your community.

Justine: So how does the way you organize your hammers reflect your worldview? Rachel: It comes down to a simple but profound debate he presents: Screws versus Glue. Justine: Screws versus Glue. Sounds like a terrible superhero movie. Rachel: It's a metaphor for how you build things, and by extension, how you live. Glue is fast, it's easy, it's permanent. But it's a one-way street. Once something is glued, you can't easily take it apart to fix it, change it, or improve it. Justine: Right, it’s a final decision. Rachel: Screws, on the other hand, take more planning. You have to drill pilot holes, line things up, think about how it will come apart later. But they give you total flexibility. You can disassemble, reconfigure, and upgrade. He tells this amazing story about building a replica of the ZF-1 gun from the movie The Fifth Element. It's an incredibly complex prop with over 175 parts. He spent years on it. Justine: I can't even assemble an IKEA bookshelf without having a small crisis. I can't imagine 175 parts. Rachel: And he built it almost entirely with mechanical fasteners—screws and bolts. No glue. Because he knew he would get things wrong. He knew he'd want to improve it later. He's rebuilt parts of it ten times. The screws gave him the freedom to iterate, to make it better over time. Glue would have locked him into his first, imperfect version. Justine: That's a fantastic metaphor. It's not just about building a prop. It's about building a career, or a skill, or even a relationship. Do you build it for rigid permanence, or do you build it with the flexibility to adapt and grow? Rachel: Exactly. And that philosophy of flexibility extends to his whole shop. He has this principle of "first-order retrievability." It means every tool should be visible and accessible without moving something else first. He hates drawers. He calls them "where stuff goes to die." Justine: I feel personally attacked. My entire life is in drawers. Rachel: His point is, if you can't see it, you'll forget you have it. So he built these rolling racks where all his pliers and screwdrivers hang in the open. He can see everything at a glance. It's what he calls "visual cacophony." It looks chaotic to an outsider, but to him, it's a perfectly organized system designed for speed and creativity. Justine: So the organization isn't about looking neat, it's about serving the work. And what about the community aspect? He talks a lot about sharing, right? That seems to fly in the face of the old-school, secretive craftsman. Rachel: It does. He tells a story about working next to a model maker who had a secret plastering technique. Adam wanted to learn it, but the guy refused to share all the details, afraid Adam would become his competition. Savage's whole philosophy is the opposite. He believes sharing knowledge is the fuel for progress. He puts detailed plans for his builds online for free. Justine: He gives away his secrets. Rachel: Because he believes that the more you give away, the richer the entire community becomes, and the more you get back in return. It's an abundance mindset versus a scarcity mindset. You build your workshop for flexibility with screws, and you build your community with open-source generosity.

Justine: Wow. So when you put it all together, it's a surprisingly cohesive life philosophy. It's not just a collection of shop tips. Rachel: Not at all. It's a complete, three-part journey. You start with the internal courage to follow your personal, secret obsessions. That's your fuel. Then, you use external systems—lists, cooling fluid, knolling—to patiently navigate the messy, chaotic middle of the project. Justine: You tame the beast. Rachel: You tame the beast. And finally, you build not just a project, but a flexible system around it with screws, and a generous community around you with sharing. It's a worldview that moves from the self, to the work, to the world. Justine: It really makes you look at your own desk, your own projects, differently. It's not just about what you make, but how you make it. The process itself is the point. Rachel: Exactly. And that's our question for everyone listening: what's one 'secret thrill' you've been putting off because it felt too weird or indulgent? Or, what's one small way you can 'use more cooling fluid' in your work or life this week? Maybe it's just taking five minutes to organize your desktop before you start. Justine: I'm going to go 'knoll' my kitchen spices. That feels like a good start. Let us know your thoughts. We're always curious to hear how these ideas land with you. Rachel: This is Aibrary, signing off.