Why creativity matters more than ever
How art can help give meaning to the meaningless
Hey friends,
It feels like it's possibly one of the strangest times in history to be humans spinning through space on a rocky blue-and-green planet with a pressure-solid core, a molten mantle that pushes our continents around, and a tiny satellite moon that controls the ebb and flow of our tides.
I say it's a strange time to be alive, but deep down, I wonder if being human has ever been anything but strange. Even when we didn't have words to give to the tides of emotion that ebb and flow in our bodies; love, fear, joy, anxiety, excitement, exhaustion, hope, hopelessness.
Even on my worst days, I love being alive.
I love being human; being here. These past few years have been so full of struggle that there have been plenty of times when I haven't felt like getting out of bed, but even then - especially then - I can still always seem to find some tiny joy that brings a spark of light to my days.
Things like:
The sun popping out from behind clouds on an otherwise grey day
The sound of rain on the roof
Watching raindrops race eachother down the window
The rustle of the wind blowing through the leaves on the gumtrees
The cat's silly-soft fur between the pads on his paws
The feel of the cold ocean or a hot shower
The way a song, book, poem, or movie can just hit right and change everything.
Sometimes I can't sleep because I'm looking forward to food, coffee, walking barefoot on the grass outside, or some other simple pleasure come morning.
The sort of simple pleasures that come from being a human with a body here on this blue-green planet that has everything we need to not only survive but also to thrive. It’s taken care of almost all our basic needs, while we've been squabbling over who gets what, where, why, and how.
I love our planet. After seven years of life on the road, including stints living on four different continents, I've seen more of it than most. I've also probably met more humans than most, and, through my work in disaster relief, likely seen more of us at our best and more at our worst than most, too. But honestly, all that did was make me want to protect it - and all of us - more.
Yet, as much as travel made me fall in love with our magical home creativity made me fall in love with humans. I was one of those kids obsessed with stories, who would stay up far too late reading under the covers - when I got my first pair of glasses, aged six, the optician said I'd strained my eyes from reading in the dark. Almost 30 years on and I still think it was worth it.
I love how seeing a painting, watching a movie, reading a book, or listening to music can give us an insight into someone else's mind and imagination and simultaneously spark our own. They can take us away from our world and into another. They can make us fall in love with strangers, care about situations so far removed from our own, believe in new things, and even imagine bigger, better, brighter futures for ourselves and our loved ones.
Like many, the world at the moment is making my heart and my head hurt. There's so much pain, so much suffering.
I've spent this past week lamenting at the state of it all, burying myself in busy work and escapism, wondering where we go from here; trying not to get caught up in the doomscrolling and doom-predicting. It's very easy to point the finger at people, but the systems are as big a part of the problem.
In the midst of it all, I've also been wondering if anything I'm doing matters. It’s something that comes up for me a lot when the collective shit hits the fan. I find myself questioning everything, wondering what the point of anything is; what my role in it all is.
I find myself asking if it’s selfish to be here building this life I love and working on creative projects and working with others to build lives and businesses they love and work on their creative projects. If I should be doing something “bigger” or “better”.
I've been asking myself questions like:
Why should I write a newsletter or a book?
Why does anyone care?
Why should I create and write and dream when everything around me feels like it’s going to hell in a handbasket and the world is spinning so endlessly out of control?
But then I remember this Mary Oliver poem, Invitation, and how these few words have carried me through some of the toughest days.
Oh do you have time
to linger
for just a little while
out of your busyand very important day
for the goldfinches
that have gathered
in a field of thistlesfor a musical battle,
to see who can sing
the highest note,
or the lowest,or the most expressive of mirth,
or the most tender?
Their strong, blunt beaks
drink the airas they strive
melodiously
not for your sake
and not for mineand not for the sake of winning
but for sheer delight and gratitude –
believe us, they say,
it is a serious thingjust to be alive
on this fresh morning
in the broken world.
I beg of you,do not walk by
without pausing
to attend to this
rather ridiculous performance.It could mean something.
It could mean everything.
It could be what Rilke meant, when he wrote:
You must change your life.
I remember how, for years, I wanted to work for the UN and change the world. And then I realised how much of the work was pen-pushing. How much you get caught up in bureaucracy.
I’ve been on both sides of the Red Cross - one of my first jobs at uni was door-knocking (I lasted two days before quitting; I hated the guilt-laden scripts and the way they targeted low-income areas) - and I saw them on the ground when I was doing disaster relief work in Guatemala, too tied up in red tape to do much with the few cents they make to every dollar raised.
It was a reminder that, for me, “changing the world” starts with changing ourselves. I’m all about grassroots-level work; community work. Going back to the basics. Perhaps it’s the contrarian in me, but I don’t trust the systems. Instead, I put my trust in people - especially the creators, the dreamers, the visionaries, the healers, and the deep thinkers and feelers.
And so, here I am, trying - not selfishly, but instead almost as an act of service - to change my life and, hopefully, in my own little way, that of those around me. Trying to find ways to make sense of the broken world, and to imagine what might exist on the other side.
If capitalism, hyperindividualisation, and growth at all costs (amongst others) got us into this mess, then maybe art, creativity, and community can help us out of it. Even building and supporting creative businesses feel like they play their part in the resistance; your dollars are going to keeping creative dreams - and humans - alive.
Anyone who works with me helps feed my cat, keeps the roof over my head, helps me support my mum, my family, and my friends, helps me write these emails, and help me to show up for myself and my world, day after day.
Not that any of that matters, in the bigger picture, but somehow it still does - especially this week, when all I see around me are broken hearts and Black Friday sales campaigns. And fuck, in a world where we’ve been conditioned to love instant gratification and like buying things will help fill the void, I can only imagine how appealing it is to many right now to just lose themselves in consumerism and bargains.
However, instead of buying just any old thing for a dopamine fix, I know, for me, picking up a book and reading someone else’s words, watching a movie or TV show, snuggling up in a handmade blanket, eating homegrown and homecooked food, or seeing a painting, a photograph, or a beautiful piece of human-made art makes a more long-lasting change.
They remind me how beautiful it is to be human and to have all these incredible collective gifts, and how much magic can happen when we share these gifts with the world. The connection it can bring. The hope. The light in the darkness, like far-off stars or the murmur of dawn in the sky.
We've tried to commodify creativity - like everything else - but we also can't incessantly cut corners and costs and still get the same results - just look at AI books, for example.
Making a movie, a painting, a meal, a blanket, a garden, a book, or hell, even this newsletter takes time. It takes trial and error, experimentation, love, dedication, energy. It takes tenacity, drive, motivation to keep going when things get tough. Out-of-the-box thinking. It takes support, community, and cheerleading.
It takes a village.
This week, for me, has been a reminder of how much we need creativity and the creative village. How it can help us give the world and this life meaning despite all the mayhem and the madness. How it can help us dream of another world and see where we've gone wrong in this one.
How it can keep us grounded, keep us striving forward, together, and give us reason to find hope and to love this world - and each other - day after broken day.
If you’ve been looking for a sign that your art, your dreams, and your creativity matter, even when the world is burning, please take this as one.
And if you want to talk to someone else who “gets it” and can help you dream bigger or bring the dreams you do have to fruition, please reach out.
I’m here.
Sending you love on the journey. I know it isn’t easy. Writing this sure wasn’t, either, but I feel like it matters. Like we matter. Like our creativity matters.
Cx
PS: If you want to chat about what my creative mentoring might look like for you, I offer free connection calls. These aren’t sales calls - my website has all my prices and packages and testimonials; I like things to be clear and for people to know what to expect and what they’d get out of working together.
Instead, they’re like a cosy chat, where we talk about your art, your dreams, and your challenges, and I try to offer some solutions and see if we’d be a good fit to dive in deeper together. Reach out if you’re interested.
PPS: As always, if you’d like to support my work, I invite you to like, comment, share, and perhaps even upgrade to a paid subscription or buy me a coffee.
All my words here are currently free to read, but I plan on delving deeper into the community side of things in the coming weeks and months, including starting writing club and creativity circles. Watch this space!
just what i needed today!! thank you so much 😊
Well said. We can all create change, even if some small way. The more energy it takes the more someone or the world needs it. X