Creating is good for the spirit.
And between photography, drawing, podcasting, and all the other forms of expression, folks are doing it more than ever. Now, there are an estimated 50 million creators worldwide. The ease of distribution by platforms like Youtube, Spotify, Twitter, etc. make it easier to share what is created.
Good, because creating, like running, meditation, journaling, therapy, and time with loved ones – is fabulous for us.
One of my favorite things is looking at something in the context of children. For example, we prohibit children from consuming most substances adults use. And it makes me wonder if us adults should be doing it. Another is children have arts and crafts time. Like recess and running around, this creative outlet develops them and is enjoyable.
But as adults, we forget or forgo the lessons we learn as children. We trade our love of exercise and being outside for long periods in front of computers. And our creative time is subordinated to more grown-up actions like watching the news or reading nonfiction.
And not only do we lose the benefits of doing creative work – the ability to imagine new solutions, tying disparate things together, idea generation – but we lose something we love doing.
What did you love to create as a kid? For me, I could build Lego structures all day. I’d make them and then play out scenes with the pieces I’d built. I built battlements, put toy army men around them, and staged epic battles or intergalactic chases.
There are many reasons I came back to creating, but most of them were for what I could contribute to things outside me. And what I’ve found is it’s me who benefits most from creating.
Writing is an active form of meditation for me. I have to notice my thoughts and then clarify them to put them down. Whereas in meditation, I’m seeing them and then letting them go or giving them my attention.
When I write, I have to dig into the thought. What’s going on here, and why is this thought about me rollerskating as a kid coming up? I dig into what’s behind it. Say, I’m subconsciously thinking about play or how I could entertain myself for hours with my imagination. I then think about in what form that’s present or active in the current version of my life and what space it would occupy in my ideal life. Maybe there are differences in those two pictures, and I can work to align them.
Lawrence Yeo, a storyteller and mentor, has talked about us as containers – like one of those Gatorade coolers. We’re filling the cooler up when we read and go about in the world. But at some point, you must let ideas out through the spigot at the bottom. Creating is that release valve that flushes out of us the things we need to release.
We create because conjuring something into the world that didn’t exist before is magic.
Ursula Le Guin said, “The creative adult is the child who survived.” Our inner Harry Potter refusing to give in to Voldemort. It’s that spirit of joy for life which erodes against the rocks of adulthood.
So channel yourself into making something. The best part about creating is you can make whatever you like.
