Love (and Sex)

[On Not Killing Creativity - IX]

There are a lot of things I could say about our over-sexualized culture. I won’t. I’ll leave that to you.

However, I will point to just this: when love is reduced to “making love” and falling in love is reduced to “uncontrollable attraction for another” then we have lost the altruism at the center of the most powerful force in the world.

Why does this matter in regard to creativity?

Flippant, immature, banalities like scantily clad women selling perfume or muscular men selling sunglasses are the cultural instantiation of love turned in on itself. It is love that is narcissistic.

And narcissism is creativity’s nemesis.

People like us that are unwilling to continue in ways like this know that our call, our thing that we’re here to do, must draw from a deeper well. Creativity, innovation, imaginative possibilities drive what we do; a rich, self-giving love animates that creative drive.