Impulse to Create

[Don’t Dismiss It - IV]

It’s there early on, in the sandbox, building castles. Without a concern, we’re fully invested. We give it a name. We tell anyone that will listen.

Though diluted, it’s there when we are teenagers and young adults. We’re often busy looking elsewhere for affirmation and hide it from our peers.

It’s not so much there as adults—often a faint ring in our ear or hum in the recess of our spirit. It never fully leaves, but it’s easily drowned out by the demands of adulthood.

It’s the impulse we all have to create.
Something important.
Something beautiful.
Something that is us.

We are not encouraged to act on our creative desires. At least not after childhood. We celebrate whatever it is that a child creates out of clay, crayons, or mud. And then we defund the arts in high schools, and encourage young people to pursue “real” jobs in fields that “really” matter and make “real” money.

Maturity is measured in part by doubting, dismissing, even criticizing our creative ideas into the ground.

And we wonder why adults stare blankly at art. Why we hang flatscreens instead of canvases on our walls. Why remake after remake of old movies are so popular. Why we spend hours scrolling through pictures of other adult’s pseudo-creativity.

Your creative desire is a source of life.
Don’t dismiss it.