They always talk about the thing. The painting. The book. The damn invention that whirs or chirps or tells you when your toast is done. People want to see the thing, hold it, sell it if they can. They want the object, not the bleeding it took to get there.
The trouble is, the object is the least of it. The least interesting. The least alive. A thing is dead the moment it’s done. The good part was in the making, and most people miss that. Worse, they run from it.
When I was young and living in Paris, I wrote a story about an old man and a fish. The story was never just about the fish. It was about the fight. The wear and the line cutting the hand. It was about losing and trying anyway.
I think that’s what creativity is. It’s not making something perfect. It’s hauling something in, slowly, sweating, doubting, slipping sometimes, and letting people watch while you do it. That last part’s important.
People like to say art is something you do alone. That’s only half true. You start alone, sure. But if you end alone, what’s the point?
Creativity isn’t about showing people what you made after the mess is cleaned up. It’s about letting them sit beside you in the mess. Letting them see you grunt and miss and maybe even start over. You don’t write for a reader who shows up after it’s done. You write for the one who’s been there the whole time, reading over your shoulder while you curse the page.
We like to pretend we’re made. Finished. Buttoned-up souls with polished thoughts. But we’re not. We’re all just trying not to fall off the damn edge. And sometimes, if we’re lucky, we catch something on paper or canvas or film or string or brick or soup or thread that shows who we were while we were becoming who we are. That’s the good stuff. Not the polished thing. The being-alive-while-doing-it part. The human part.
I knew a man once who made chairs. Fine ones. He’d show you one, run his hand over the arm, say, “See how this one curves?” Then he’d tell you how he almost cut off his thumb making it. That was always the best part—the almost. The thumb. The story behind the chair. The becoming of it. If he’d just shown the chair and shut up, I wouldn’t have remembered it. But I remember the story. I remember the man.
That’s what I mean. The thing you make is only ever half the story. The other half is the shape you made while you were still moving.
So if you’re going to be creative, don’t just show people the final piece. Show them the mornings you didn’t want to get out of bed. Show them the bad drafts and broken clay and burnt crust. Show them your cracked hands and sleepless eyes. That’s what makes it art. Not the finish, but the fight.
Because creativity isn’t about being clever or perfect. It’s about being honest while you’re still becoming. And letting someone else see it—maybe even become with you, in their own way. Maybe that’s all we’re doing. Becoming together, badly, beautifully, and not quitting.
And when it works—hell, that’s worth all the bad sentences in the world.
Join us in making the world a better place – you’ll be glad that you did. Cheers friends.