Creativity isn't an Indulgence
If We Do Not Do and Dream, We Die
Being creative: building, dreaming, writing, drawing, painting, and dancing is why we are here. If we do not do and dream, we will die.
Some people need to know there will be a payoff at the end of all the hard work, but I say the payoff is the magic that happens when we create something where before there was nothing. There is something divine, sacred, and powerful about that, even if no one ever sees or reads or experiences the work of our souls. It doesn’t matter. It isn’t for them. It’s for us.
“Every artist was first an amateur” Ralph Emerson
For every blocked creative turned entrepreneur, there are a hundred free-flowing poets, world builders, and dragon-summoning authors to fill the void. Anyone who is creating and can share it at some level (even the free-friend level!) is contributing to the world. We build on each other’s words. Mary Oliver’s stanzas are rooted in my head; Robert Frost has been there for decades. It all influences our art.
Having said that, for someone who truly believes this on a gut level, I am surprisingly negligent about making time for creativity. The time I carve out to write has brought joy to an otherwise difficult life, so why is it so hard to say no to everyone else and carve out at least a few minutes to create daily?
I am lifted up when I write, and I can’t tell if it’s the actual writing or that liminal space before the words start to flow where I am alone and watching the birds outside my open window. I feel alive when I create. I feel like I’m finally the authentic self I’ve been hiding from even those closest to me. What better magic is this?
If you’re waiting for permission to spend hours making yourself happy and creating a poem, a novel, or a micro-short memoir, you’ve got it. If you want to knit a sweater in July or dig out that paint-by-number at the bottom of your desk drawer, do it now. Dream it, do it, for it’s own sake.
“Whatever you dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.