The drive of creativity

Since I was a child, I always wanted to be considered “artsy” and creative. When I was young, the options presented to me always appeared to be analytical or creative, and analytical held zero appeal to me. Scientist? Mathematician? No, thank you, I want to be an artist. I had this romantic idea that I would always be surrounded by pencils and paints and ink stains on my fingers. I can’t imagine that’s unusual for a child. After all, we are offered finger paints and construction paper and told to create snowflakes and comic strips once we move on from drawing a violet crayon across the entire page of a coloring book (ignoring any rules the lines on the page may dictate).

Now that I’m an adult, I still feel that drive inside me, though it’s changed since then. I don’t fashion myself a painter or a sculptor or a digital artist, though I spent my limited elective hours on such things when I was in high school. I don’t draw any more, though the fact that I have a literal portfolio of my work from my teenage years makes that an unexpected result. I consider myself an artist in my writing, in the way I craft worlds and interactions between characters I have only ever met inside my head. In the way that I string together poems like songs that swell and bow with pain and want.

But as I participate in art in this capacity, I also maintain a day job in an analytical field. There’s art to that too, but that is perhaps a conversation for another day. What I mean to say is that because I participate in an analytical field, I also am privy to paying attention to how all types of people navigate the world. Which makes me further analyze how I navigate the world. A bit like Batman, with a secret identity, as if I’m only a writer when darkness falls over the world. This led me to pay attention to how similar creatives might navigate the world.

And by that, I mean I started enjoying unusual creative ventures.

I’ve discussed some of these ventures in previous blog posts. But let me explain what I mean, in case you’re not familiar.

I love watching streamers and video game “let’s plays.” I’m a huge fan of Achievement Hunter and Squad Team Force at Rooster Teeth. I also will jump on YouTube to enjoy GameGrumps and Outside Xbox/Outside Xtra or head over to Twitch to watch Chilled Chaos, DooleyNotedGaming, or others.

I love analog horror, though I watch it through GT Live and experience the odd wonders of the Walden Files, Local 58, and The Backrooms through the eyes of MatPat.

Give me your unusual podcasts. Throw me more games like the beauty that is Gris. Or content creators like the Good Mythical Morning family or other fun shows at Rooster Teeth. There are so many creative ventures to enjoy. So often, I think we limit our understanding of what creativity amounts to. Do you write? Do you create film pieces? Do you create art? What about music? But there’s a grand world of creativity out there.

Which led me to the thought…what is this drive of creativity within humanity and why does it drive each of us in the unique way it does?

Why do some people decide to become game streamers? Or Instagram poets? Especially when there’s no promise of finding an audience. While there are more forums than ever to create all different types of creative content, that also means that you are nothing more than a drop in an ever growing sea of options.

In fact, this entire thought process was inspired by a single song that I discovered completely accidentally while listening to music (content warning for language here): “An Incoherent Meditation on a F***** Up Year” by What After This? It’s an absolutely beautiful piece of music devoid of lyrics that came up on my Spotify through the algorithm. According to Spotify, this artist has 19,404 monthly listeners (as a comparison point, Taylor Swift has well over 52 million).

I adore this piece of music because I cannot fathom how it was possibly created. And yet I feel like it understands me.

Understands me. Not the other way around.

As I listen to this beautiful piece of music and it drives me toward the itching of tears in the corners of my eyes for a reason I don’t entirely understand, I think about how someone was inspired to create this piece of art. The thoughts in their head translated to keys on a piano that built into a small orchestra. While I can rationalize how a feeling deep within myself can be translated to words on a page and a story to be told, I am unable to grasp how someone else could do the same with music.

So I wonder the same about content creators. What drives the translation of thought and emotion into the creation of video games? Of analog horror? Of a gaming stream?

Why do we create? Especially when we are a small mark on a bigger world. Especially when the art we produce we put out into the world for free. Especially when we’re lucky if even one person is listening.

I mean, why do I write this blog? This tiny thing that takes hours upon hours of my time?

And I think back to that little girl with her hands covered in marker markings and elbow deep in glitter. I think back to that little girl who spent hours at her desk, painstakingly copying pictures that I liked in order to learn how to draw. I think back to clay under my fingernails. And the reverie I feel overwhelm me when I walk into a craft store or book store or office supply store, if I’m being honest.

And as is the case with most complicated questions, this one doesn’t have a simple answer. But I will try my best.

The way I see it, we as humans are constantly seeking to be understood. And so we put ourselves out into the universe in whatever way we can and ask the universe to accept that version of ourselves. The things that bring us joy, the things that bring us pain, we just ask you to see it and not turn away. Sometimes, that thing we offer is our darkest traumas. Sometimes, we simply wish to share our joy with another person. We extract our hearts from our chests and hold them out in front of us to say, “Here. Please don’t hurt it.”

Our creativity is a translation of ourselves. That is our mark on the world and the portion of ourselves that we have the capability to leave behind. Our creativity is our effort to matter, even if it’s only to ourselves.

Sometimes, that creativity leads to fame and fortune, for better or worse. Sometimes, it leads to irrational controversy. I think of banned books, the way someone’s creativity makes us face a truth we might be uncomfortable with. And sometimes, it leads to basically nothing. A piece of art we bury in a drawer never to be uncovered. What then? What’s the point then?

It’s the pouring out of ourselves. It’s the desire to understand who that person is. It’s the pressure in a pipe building and building until it threatens to burst so you turn the nozzle to release a slow stream. We need that whether or not we are paid for our efforts.

And so we all keep creating. We keep putting pieces of our own souls out into the world. And for the entirety of our lives, we will always be blessed to be those children covered in glitter, hands sticky with paste, exploring what makes us who we are.