WHY DO WE CREATE?

Why oh why do we create? Spoiler alert: there’s not just one answer. Different people create for different reasons, and those reasons can shift at different times and places, and in different situations. 

• Here’s my QUESTION & invitation: What inspires YOU to create or innovate? Is creation woven into your mission or vision? Perhaps an object, image, or sound will spark your creative mind? Your creative soul? Maybe creating flows from your determination to fill a need, solve a puzzle, explore a mystery or follow a muse? Perhaps it’s more than one thing? I’m super curious to know and honor what inspires or motivates your wildly creative journey. Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

Here’s my ANSWER to the question, IN FOUR PARTS.

Part 1: Creativity is muse-given and mystical 

The Rainbow Serpent of Creation plays a mystical role in sparking my creativity. Aboriginal Australians source the world’s creation to The Rainbow Serpent of Creation. The artwork pictured below depicts the Rainbow Serpent’s story. This artwork is displayed in my office to inspire my creative mission to serve and play in community. 

In the interpretation of the artist, Louis Enoch, The Rainbow Serpent of Creation turns and twists like a river, conveying many gifts of creation through water as an element and live spirit. The serpent's bends represent the twists and turns of life, which inspires me because my truth is that all creators and innovators "Zigzag With Success". The rainbows at each bend of the radiate the serpent's gifts to the world. The hands represent community and connection now, in the future, the heritage on whose shoulders I stand to radiate the values I live by. The dots represent nourishment and energy flow.

The Rainbow Serpent of Creation thrives in Dreamtime, which is the Aboriginal concept for the Eternal, sometimes also referred to as “Everywhen.” I imagine Dreamtime as a place where the immortals congregate and roam, where their superhero gifts are manifest, where magic and muse mingle, from where they spray their prisms of light on our mortal plane. 

Part 2: I create to say “I am.” 

I create to say “I am”. That’s the conclusion to the 1968 Academy Award-winning short documentary film, Why Man Creates, directed by Saul Bass. The film muses on a number of reasons why we create, including: to fool around, to have a process, to digress, to search, and ultimately, simply to be. 

I create because I do indeed want to be witnessed. There’s ego woven into that desire to be witnessed, and I’m at peace with that part of my ego. I believe that ego is necessary to be a successful creator or innovator. Ego is inherently woven into our self-esteem. That’s the way we humans are wired. Ego often gets a bad rap, but there are many good and necessary parts to ego. I’ll say much more about how Ego Is Good in a future article. 

I have often pondered my answer to Why Man Creates since I first saw the 25-minute film as a teenager shortly after its release. The question intrigues me today, and I hope it will continue to intrigue me throughout my life. Some 35 years ago, I spent an afternoon with Saul Bass and his then-assistant, my close friend Steven Sprung. (Steven is now an Emmy-nominated editor for TV and feature films.) The wisdom Saul gave me that day is scattered throughout my brain. I especially remember Saul having a lot of small art objects and trinkets around his desk and in nearby cabinets that seemed to spark his ideation. 

Part 3: Creating is a psychological imperative 

The adage goes, “Necessity is the mother of invention.” I believe that it’s also true the other way around: Invention is the mother of necessity. We need more things than other animals need because we can invent more things than other animals can. 

If that chicken/egg scenario gummed up your brain, I’ll explain.

Creativity and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. For our bodies to survive physiologically, we need food, water, air, shelter, health. But it seems like we don’t need creativity in order for our bodies to survive. In fact, psychologist Abraham Maslow in his “Hierarchy of Needs” pyramid (see image above), doesn’t list creativity as a need until after we’ve satisfied our base needs: physiological, safety, social, and our self-esteem needs. Maslow categorizes creativity at the top of the needs pyramid: self-actualization, which he said is a state of being that we’re ready to pursue after we’ve satisfied all those other needs. 

But I believe differently than Maslow. I believe that creativity exists alongside all those other categories of needs. Creativity is not in full flower (I’m using the flower metaphor because I have a live flowering plant on my desk), but that doesn’t exclude creativity from being there throughout all the Maslow’s stages (some see the stages as a series of overlapping waves). Creativity in Maslow’s hierarchy need not be “on/off” or “either/or”; creativity is a “both/and”. I think if Maslow were alive today, he’d probably agree. After all, Maslow’s eponymous pyramid is his legacy and we all stand on that, hopefully in honor and gratitude. 

Creativity is essential to each of the other categories of needs. Humans are resourceful in getting our food and other physiological needs. Resourcefulness is a type of creativity, inventiveness, and innovation. When we cannot be resourceful, due especially to poverty or famine, we perish.

Likewise, our safety needs are fulfilled by human inventiveness. For example, the recent fire storms threatened our safety here in Los Angeles, and our abilities to respond creatively were overwhelmed. Many lost their homes. Those folks definitely need to have their physiological needs replenished. AND they also need their spirits replenished and creativity helps so that. A few weeks ago, I wrote in this space about facing fire storms, especially my brother Paul Kay’s building design innovations that helped spare his industrial/commercial buildings. Creativity played a consequential role for Paul.

Fulfilling our needs for love and belonging are inextricably woven with creativity. Maybe we give our sweetheart some flowers (there’s those flowers again). We wear the uniform colors of our team, the brand or accessory of our favorite performer or product, we language in ways to show we belong to a tribe. 

Move higher up the pyramid to feed your esteem needs (or witness someone feeding theirs) and creativity is like the deluxe live flower arrangement, planted in a beautiful box that sings (quoting Saul Bass) “I am.” 

And now Maslow’s pyramid’s pinnacle: self-actualization, with the focus becoming self-discovery, pursuing meaning, fulfilling our purpose…and creativity. 

Perhaps you also noticed a trend: that as we move up the hierarchy pyramid, creativity becomes more and more visible. Creativity was never absent. I like to think that creativity is like a flower bulb planted in the ground, growing, growing, and then voilà!

Part 4: Creation is Celebration 

Celebration is interwoven with creativity so inextricably that celebration is creation, and creation’s essence is celebration. Celebration, from the Latin “celebrare” means to gather to honor. In the Middle Ages the word evolved to “celebrate”, and the meanings also evolved to include more happy occasions. Perhaps celebrating has become so ubiquitous that its importance gets diluted. So here is a call to rediscover celebration (I’m especially calling to myself), and with that rediscovery of celebration we will enrich creativity and creation itself. I have a bit more to say about creativity and celebration in the K♣️ article.

🎵K♥️ WILDLY CREATIVE is my weekly article on innovation and creativity.

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