My entire life, or at least the many decades I’ve had the self-awareness to recognize this aspect of my nature, I’ve made it known that in order to feel true to myself and truly myself, I consistently and frequently need the opportunity to be creative.

Lacking that, I become depressed and… well… not great to be around.

You may also be someone who identifies as needing creativity for good mental health.

I probably don’t have to mention how easily the responsibilities and obligations of everyday life can deprioritize a commitment to an active and regular creative practice.

I probably don’t have to mention the complex stew of other influential, interrelated forces arrayed to further chip away at that commitment. Self doubt, a dearth of objective feedback, a comparison habit, imposter syndrome, fatigue, physical or mental health concerns… each of us faces our own particular dream nightmare team ever-ready to erode our resolve to do that one thing we understand is foundational to our well-being.

I do mention these things because there are people in every creator’s life who don’t share this need to create, and those people might read this. You, dear writer / artist / musician / maker / creator, might even show them this article.

They Might Love You, but They Might Not Get You

Let’s take a few paragraphs to be very, very clear about a few things:

I’m not implying those folks are not creative (everyone is creative), but it’s possible they don’t need to create.

When you tell them creative endeavors are integral to your mental health, they may comprehend the meaning of the words, but maybe they don’t — maybe can’t — understand. They don’t have the same frame of reference.

Distressingly, those people may be among the forces eroding your commitment to your creative life.

Don’t be angry with them.

They have their own perspective; their own priorities; their own fears and concerns and aspirations and insecurities. If their actions demonstrate that they just don’t get it, it’s probably not out of malice, and it’s probably not intentional.

All the same, when people close to you don’t validate and support your intrinsic need to be creative, the result may be you find it even easier to believe that need is not integral.

It could be the thimbleful of water that breaks the dam and finally drowns the fertile valley of your optimal nature.

“Writing Fiction is a Luxury”

Someone said that to me once.

I think I understood what they meant: Writing fiction is (at best, maybe!) a bet on future rewards, and so is an investment that should only be made when nothing else is immediately pressing.

At the time, all I could do was gape, and repeat back what they said, question mark tacked at the end.

I’ve never forgotten it.

Ouch

It’s like a little piece of shrapnel that would, should the doctors go in to dig it out, so stress the patient with secondary injury and trauma it’s easier to keep it buried deep in the flesh, even though now and then it might set off some alarms.

Like any chronic injury, though, the body knows it’s there. You walk around with a very-slightly elevated immune response. A little extra inflammation and a higher white blood cell count, all putting just a little extra strain and drain on your reserves.

Friendly fire or no, it’s still toxic.

But… Were They Right?

It’s true, after all, that there will always be important, critical, pressing things demanding our time and our energy. And of course, moments of true crisis flare up in every life, given enough time.

And even when there isn’t a Big Thing to deal with… aren’t there always so many smaller things? Car and household repairs and upkeep. Familial and social commitments. Pets.

Any adult could fill every waking moment doing things the people in our lives (and we!) believe should be done before, or instead of, taking the time to write fiction or otherwise be creative.

Anyone could make a very good argument backed by many plausible reasons that yes, writing fiction is a luxury.

They’d be wrong.

“…Neglect Those Plausible Reasons…”

In 2022, Maria Popova published a piece in The Marginalia spotlighting a quote from C. S. Lewis.

He was giving a sermon to a group of “frightened young scholars unsure of what use their… creative labor(s) have…” at the peak of World War II, in England.

In other words, a bunch of creative people ready to accept that to engage in their creative endeavors was, in such a time of, to say the least, more pressing concerns, a luxury. One they not just couldn’t afford… one it might even be shameful to pursue.

Here’s a condensed version of what Lewis had to say about that. For the full quote, see Maria’s article. For the full sermon, see the collection The Weight of Glory.

“If (creative people) postponed the search for knowledge and beauty until they were secure, the search would never have begun. Life has never been normal. Even those periods which we think most tranquil turn out to be full of crises, alarms, difficulties, emergencies. Plausible reasons have never been lacking for putting off all merely cultural activities until some imminent danger has been averted or some crying injustice put right. But humanity long ago chose to neglect those plausible reasons. They wanted knowledge and beauty now, and would not wait for the suitable moment that never comes. This (is) our nature.”

“There are always plenty of rivals to our work. We are always falling in love or quarrelling, looking for jobs or fearing to lose them, getting ill and recovering, following public affairs. If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavourable. Favourable conditions never come.”

Favorable conditions never come.

You know what does come eventually and inevitably, though, across good times or bad?

The last day you are able to pursue your art.

That might not even be your last day alive. You could have a stroke, or suffer the degradation of your intellectual faculties. You could linger for months or years, incapable of satisfying your fundamental need to create.

It’s said the gates of heaven sit just a finger’s breadth beyond the fences of purgatory. Imagine not being able to reach it, knowing all the hours and days and weeks you could, but instead chose something you thought was more important.

Tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after, just as today, those rivals to our work will still exist: either the same ones you faced yesterday and face today, or new ones.

So.

You can succumb to the fears, and pressures, and obligations, and asserted priorities present every moment of every day of your life, and demote your creativity to luxury status. You may accomplish things, and have some sense of security, and perhaps enjoy greater tranquility in your relationships.

Ignoring a truth does not eliminate it, though. You will be miserable.

What’s more…

You Have a Responsibility to Create

Remember, humanity, to paraphrase ol’ Clive’s words, wants beauty now, and does not wait for a suitable moment.

We seek out the experience that is art in every medium, including the oldest, Story, in every human condition.

Every moment is a suitable moment for art.

Every human being is enriched by creativity; sometimes their own, more often, some else’s endeavor.

Therefore, creative endeavors like writing fiction are no more a luxury than experiencing the fruit of those endeavors.

Art is a Human Need

You, dear reader who is also a dear writer, artist, musician, actor, comedian, creator, you are responsible for bringing art to the world.

And yes, your creative expression — your stories, perhaps — are as valid a use of your time as anyone’s.

While you may or may not be a widely beloved, bestselling author, your particular vision, expressed in your particular way, is unlike any other.

There is someone out there for whom that particularly expressed vision is exactly what they need.

What they’re missing.

You are made less when you put aside your creativity…

…and there are people who will forever be less if they don’t ever get to experience your creativity.

Creativity is a Human Right

Creativity, whether you’re the one making the thing or the one experiencing the thing that’s been made (and we are almost all of us some combination of both), is one of things that makes you human.

If you’re like me, the need to create is so acute your mental health suffers when it’s denied.

Either way, creativity is not a luxury.

Creativity is a human right.

Don’t be afraid to embrace it. To prioritize it.

Don’t let anyone make you feel ashamed to pursue it. Including yourself.

The world needs you to do it.

You need to do it.

So do it. Dedicate time and energy to your creative endeavors, your creative writing, your fiction.

Be your whole, healthy, human self.

PS: Just in case you might think I don’t eat my own dog food: I spent several hours across the space of two mornings writing this article. It’s time I took away from doing work for my clients, which I will make up later, and more importantly and urgently, searching for new client work. There’s a part of me that feels anxious about that choice. There’s another part of me that feels good to have written, and to have put this piece into the world for you. This is not the first, and will not be the last, time I struggle with this choice. So it goes.

~

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