Use that creativity/talent you have. You can't single-handedly save the damn planet, and using your creativity will challenge your mind.

Now, go do some damn guilt free creating!

It's true, you can't save the whole planet.

But your creativity just might save ONE person.

If one person sees how happy being creative makes you, it might inspire him or her to do something similar.

Not to be too dramatic here, but that one little thing might be the difference between life and death for someone else.

there, fending off ivory poachers, or saving the whales or the rainforest or... (my planet saving fantasies usually revolve around animals and the environment, with some very young or old humans thrown in there because they're so vulnerable).

However. I've decided to try to do what I enjoy and am good at, and donate money to those causes, and volunteer.

I can't really handle the planet-saving stuff emotionally, but I can and will give lots of money (whenever I earn it from my wonderfully creative skills ) and give my time, when I am sure I won't break down in tears or explode in rage at the inhumanity of it all.

Just curious, Neoma - why would you think using your talents wouldn't challenge your mind? Is it because it comes naturally? Well, if so, use your talent and then try to learn Japanese or design a beautiful garden or something - challenge your mind in another way. It doesn't have to be the way you earn your living.

You can call me a house wife if you like, but that's pretty inaccurate. I grew up the unschooled way. I taught myself, and it's so ingrained in me, there's a certain pressure to keep doing it. So, I keep doing it. I'm in my own school constantly. I give myself homework. How many people do you know that does that out of habit?

Because of my education, I also kept my imagination and creativity intact, unlike a lot of people I know. So yes, it's very natural. It's challenging in its own way, I'll go along with that. But the constant pressure I've held over myself about learning and learning, and constantly learning, it's difficult to find a reason (in my head) to use any of my talents.

As you said in a sense... "But I could learn Japanese instead!" Is the constant idea in my head. But, I could do this, or that. It's better for me...guilt trip, guilt trip.

(I just realized you posted your OP back in March..
but you inspired me... and, no guilt allowed.)

Our creativity isn't different from the creativity in all nature.
Talk about active creativity..
and what is the purpose of it?

Blue & gold skies - why bother?
Rainbows? Northern lights? Stars
that are born and die every day,
Different clouds every day, or no clouds,
unmeasurable color combinations,
creatures with legs and antennae,
growing new ones, dropping off old tails or
extra thumbs, or fur;
spots that look like eyes on the
backs of baby bugs, mating colors and dances,

leaves and plants, of every shape smell and color,
tall trees that change colors and creatures
with wings who fly through the air, everywhere,
too many to count.

Wind that makes music with trees and
mountains, windchimes, creatures who
sing to the moon, water that falls from the sky
sometimes frozen sometimes not
and every drop reflects light and color.

stinky dirt that transforms into colorful
fragrant delicious things. even stinky dirt!
creative everything, everywhere. and
worms that help!! squiggly slimy things.
made out of dirt & water, like we are.

it goes on and on: new things coming into
existence and old things vanishing
into time (as we also will.) Creativity.

One time I was in an airplane, looking
down at the clouds. And I wondered, why are
the clouds so beautiful from the top? Surely
not designed for anyone to see, not even
birds fly that high.. still they were exquisite,
vast mountain ranges of clouds, every sort,
miles high in the sky.

And I concluded that it just can't help
itself, that Creativity. It just has to keep
making beautiful stuff. That's what it does,
no time to stop and think about it.

But I understand the question about purpose,
and often have asked myself the same. If it
isn't making money, it's hard to justify.
If it's FUN, it's hard to justify. If 'impractical'
it's hard to justify. WRONG

It's like breathing. The creative is a force within you,
me, within everything. We are part of that. It is the
most natural state of a human being, to be creative.

I suppose one spring the grass and flowers might
ponder: should we or should we not grow and
bloom this year? Everything just dies again in the fall,
and the world hasn't changed a bit for me blooming.

But for a creative person, it's like breathing.
We ought to use our gifts, if we can.
That's what they are for.

Regardless of belief in a god, or not,
there is something I call life itself,
or beauty itself,
which I recognize as omnipresent,
but most importantly,
it is the force inside of me that makes me
breathe and live.

It is my creator; it doesn't need any name, but
it keeps creating me, from
birth to death, as long as I live and breathe.

So when I am also being creative, I feel closest to
that beautiful energy.

Wait. That was third grade.

very good for ceiling murals but better in the dining room.

That way the entire universe is respected, not a mere rock which is actually Earth II since the first one blew up.

think of how we respond to disasters, just us little humans..
we get creative and we get full of love,
it counters the despair and saves us, the creativity in us.
it's not separate from the compassion in us.

and the way the earth responds to disasters,
after floods, after fires, earthquakes:
rebuild, rebirth, renew. takes creativity, and time.
every particle of everything participates in this creative process.

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... you're REALLY good and REALLY career-proactive in the marketing field, chances are you'll end up
in NYC (Manhattan, specifically). He and several of his classmate buddies did just that. He threw a
Christmas Eve Dessert party (MiddleFingerMomSis, not knowing how to boil hot dogs when she got
married in '73, had become the finest amateur gourmet cook that I've ever known and was thinking
of starting a dessert catering business, -- dessert party business meetings having taken the place of
the 2-3 martini lunch in the mid-80's).
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Interesting, surprisingly aware and volunteer-active group of folks. I liked 'em. My favorite (of course)
was the "hippie" of their MBA crowd in college (he confessed to me that sometimes he thought the
BIGGEST mistake he had made was in selling his drum kit so that he could complete his degree. On
one hand, here was a man making maybe 200K+ in the mid-80's -- on the other hand, that same
man once drummed in Chuck Berry's back-up band).
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He told me of his very first advertising agency interview in the mid-70's, to which he had worn his
only suit and his only dress shirt, which had Daffy Duck and Porky Pig embroidered on the lapels.
Several minutes into the questions, the interviewer stopped cold and asked, "You're here for the
marketing job, aren't you? This interview is over. Judging from your attire, I thought you were
here for a job with the creative department."
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He then gave him some of the simplest, most effective jobhunting advice EVER -- invest in a plain
white dress shirt.
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He got a job soon after.
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One of my favorite "creative" stories.
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If you're talking artistic and you're frustrated because no one has recognized your Picasso-level
work, keep in mind that (I believer) Picasso didn't sell his first masterpiece until he was 56.
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If you're talking organizationally creative, go back and start taking baby steps again. Trying to
fix the world would frustrate anyone with at least one foot on the ground.
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Trying to feed a few more people with the same resources can be HUGE (especially for those
few more people).
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Sometimes, when I've disappointed myself, I've tried to take a realistic and effective look at
what I did/didn't do.
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Often, I end realizing that, not only wasn't it a BAD thing -- it was actually kind of a good thing
that I had accomplished, which makes me laugh and ask, "Just who the fuck do I think I am?"
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