Icarus Rising: Why Do We Create?

My entire life has been steeped in the actions of making. My earliest memories revolve around learning how to thread a needle, and how to fold the perfect creases into squares of patterned paper. My hands have always been busy, my mind revolving around what could be to the point that I often miss what is. 

But last week I found myself in a living nightmare. Because of circumstances beyond my control, my ability to create, to art, to make, to do was stripped from me. It was only for a few days, but I found my mind slipping off the edge of sanity without that outlet. Is it simply habit at this point for me to always be doing something? Is it generations of nimble fingers and keen eyes that flows through me like the blood in my veins? A legacy of artists and makers that has written itself into my DNA. Or is it something more? Where does the fire inside me that drives creation come from?

I don't know if I have an answer really, but this experience showed me that I have taken that fire for granted. I have doused it constantly with self-doubt and harsh criticism. I have focused so much on what I wish things were that I forgot to appreciate what they are. And I think this is an all too familiar experience for so many of us.  The little lies on our head that convince us we aren't good enough, that work isn't worth being seen.  That if we can't appreciate our creations, no one else possibly can either.  Sometimes this is the limitations of skill that comes from lack of practice or experience.  Sometimes it's simply the demons of other people's opinions that have settled into the dark corners of our minds.

So while I have no answers for the question "why do we create?" I do offer this; appreciate each act of creation as the expression of self that it is.  Rather than looking at our works with bitterness and disappointment, celebrate each of them as a crowning achievement.  Because each piece of art you create will undoubtedly be better than the last. Even if we don't see it in the moment. Instead of looking back with disdain, look forward with pride.  "If I can create this now, the next one will be even better." And the next. And the next. And the next.  Keep going.

Because if there is one thing I do know, it is that creation is as integral to life as any other basic need.  And it should be protected just as preciously.

Protect your fire.  And keep creating.