Why do we create?
That’s a question that popped up at the end of my morning meditation, and I just had to sit down and ponder the power of that simple questions..
I think we create for many reasons. We create for shear joy, to express a feeling or an idea, to practice a skill or learn a technique, to be like people we admire. There are so many reasons why we create, but I think the main reason that we create is simply that it’s in our programming. As human beings we are programmed to create, and when I say create, I don’t just mean crating art, though I am a visual artist, I mean building, cooking, writing, designing, singing, dancing, making, and so much more. When we create we are solving a problem. We’re making food for to feed our bodies. We’re writing music to feed our souls. We’re expressing a personal truth that we want to get from our heads to someone else’s. We’re building a business to serve a specific need.
We are constantly presented with problems, and we use our creativity to solve them. But nowadays, so many of our problems are simply solved by buying something online or in a store or by paying someone else to solve them for us, and we don’t have to use our creativity and problem solving skills like we once did. Long before Amazon and Target and supermarkets and fast food chains, we had to solve our problems by making and creating things ourselves. We built our homes, sewed our clothes, baked our bread, planted our food. We were constantly making and creating because it was just part of our day-to-day life as a means of survival.
But over time we lost that daily making and creating, and now we are mostly consuming. We buy — we watch — we listen. We consume and consume. But there is still this innate need inside to create. I think it explains the plethora of DIY shows, channels, and videos. I think it explains the popularity of those reality competition shows where folks bake, or cook, or blow glass. We want to create, but we’re still stuck in consume mode, and it’s easier to watch others create than it is for us to do something ourselves. But we still dream of being creators.
It’s a natural part of who we are. We have somehow become disconnected to it. We have shut ourselves off from it, and we find excuse after excuse to not even try. We have convinced ourselves that it’s easier to stay disconnected from a crucial part of ourselves than it is to risk becoming fully who we are and live up to our greatest potential. We continue to feel incomplete. We feel like something is missing — that there’s a deep part of us buried and calling to us, but we don’t want to take the risk.
Why? Why won’t we take the steps to connect with that part of ourselves?
Fear. We are afraid that we’ll suck at it. We’re afraid that others will laugh at us and make fun of us. We fear that we won’t be as good as someone else — that we’ll never measure up. We fear that we’ll be discovered and found out as frauds and creative charlatans. We fear that what we want to say is worthless. We fear that we will fail. We fear so much, and so we stay in our comfortable little bubbles and consume and consume and dream and dream. All the while, we feel disconnected and incomplete.
It takes courage and vulnerability to create. What would it look like — what would it feel like — if the world supported us in this fragile state? What if we felt the fear and did it anyway?
We risk connecting with ourselves and showing up as fully ourselves when we dare to create, and we may just find that others will support and encourage us and that we may just inspire others. It’s a risk we should be willing to take.
So make, create, build, sing, dance, draw, paint, write, learn, connect, and become. It’s part of who you are!