If you’re someone like me, an intuitive empath coping with a daily load of existential dread, I’ll wager you’re probably finding it extra hard to tap into your creativity lately. (For purposes of this blog, let’s assume you are. If not, you may as well quit reading. This article isn’t meant for you, you bold and wonderful creature.) As if the aftermath of dealing with a global pandemic and losing my father this past fall weren’t enough, now there’s a horrific war raging overseas, the likes of which I hoped never to experience in my lifetime. It’s more than a little distracting when it comes to letting my imagination run wild and setting words to the page.
What if I told you this is exactly the reason why we as creatives should be throwing ourselves into making our art?
I bet that got your attention. Why? Because, like everyone else in the world, we want to know:
Why make art in the first place?
Does art even matter?
Who cares what I have to say?
Why is my vision important?
What’s the point of writing a (fill-in-the-genre) story when the world is falling apart?
Shouldn’t I be using my energy for something more constructive than making art right now?
How is making this art going to do the world any good?
Do I have a right to be an artist when the world and people around me are suffering so?
The next time you hear anything even remotely similar to any of the above, ask yourself one question. Pay particular attention to the first answer that comes to mind.
When you’re going through hell, how much is it worth to you when someone holds out a light in the darkness?
Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it. My optimism, then, does not rest on the absence of evil, but on a glad belief in the preponderance of good and a willing effort always to cooperate with the good, that it may prevail. ~Helen Keller~