Why Do You Create?
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA
Have you ever read something that was the emotional or intellectual equivalent of a punch in the gut from a large and angry man named Knuckles? It doesn’t happen to me often, but when it does, I do my best to figure out exactly why what I read affected me so profoundly. Also, I like to make sure I didn’t actually get punched in the gut because, if I did, I have a completely different problem.
Tycho Brahe, one of the two obscenely-creative guys from Penny Arcade, wrote something about quitting that delivered a well-timed Knuckles-punch. Here’s the pertinent bit.
You have to get back on the horse. Somehow, and I don’t know how this kind of thing starts, we have started to lionize horseback-not-getting-on: these casual, a priori assertions of inevitable failure, which is nothing more than a gauze draped over your own pulsing terror. Every creative act is open war against The Way It Is. What you are saying when you make something is that the universe is not sufficient, and what it really needs is more you. And it does, actually; it does. Go look outside. You can’t tell me that we are done making the world.
[Emphasis Mine]
I’m asked, from time to time, why I keep The Shack running and why I do The Delivery every week. It’s true, I hope to build a couple few things here and there that will allow me to do the things I love, for pay, all the time. Really though, I started each of them because of the very reason Tycho gave. I believed, and still believe, that I have valuable and useful things to offer and these are the ways by which I offer them. I believed the universe needed more me.
And I’ll let you in on a little secret. I still believe it needs more me. I’m not done creating things, so watch this space. There is a lot more fun to come.
Related posts:
- The Delivery Presents – Free Speech and Why to Create
- Scientists Seek to Create Life. Herbert West Unavailable for Comment
- If There Is No Nuclear Crisis, Go Out and Create One!
- So Long and Thanks for All the Science!
Category: The Shack
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I like this better than the Rousseauian crap we usually get about having a “passion” for something. The word passion literally means “suffering” – it’s a thing you undergo, not engage in. That’s either saying something stupid, or not saying anything at all. It is more to our nature to look around, say, “this is all screwed up!” and roll up the sleeves and get to work. None of this suffering crap. I’m an active agent in this world, and I can either act for the good, for the bad, or passively allow the good to pass into the bad.
Let’s roll.
” Every creative act is open war against The Way It Is. What you are saying when you make something is that the universe is not sufficient, and what it really needs is more you.”
That is brilliant. Love it. Thanks for sharing it. I’m going to print that out and hang it over my desk.
And I look forward to your future creations, Jimmie, and hope I can be a part of them. Let me know if any of your work could use a little more me.
[...] you fill it are the subjects of most of the second half. I’d spent a few days mulling over the quote in this post and thought it worth sharing with all of you. Who knows what you’ll do with it? Create more [...]