Why Everyone Needs to Be a Creator

Humanity is waiting on us to create

Leo Babauta over at Zenhabits.net said: I write of simplicity in a world that’s needlessly complicated. 

Not too long ago, I came across these words and it got me thinking about creativity and our social problems. 

Merriam-Webster defines creativity as “the quality of being creative or the ability to create.” Of course, we all know the typical creative suspects, such as —

  • those who can photograph or paint visual orgasms; 
  • those who can compose music that soothes and transports; or 
  • those who can write words that inspire, seduce, inform. 

For a long time, I accepted this limited definition of what it means to be a creative. And because of that, for decades, I denied my innate creative force and brushed aside opportunities to discover fresh ways of expressing it. This limited understanding of what it means to be creative caused me to dismiss parts of myself and discount the value I did and could create in the world.

So I urge you not to accept Society’s limited understanding of creativity, which takes the idea hostage and corrupts it into something elite and exclusive. Indeed, why can’t the following be valid expressions of creativity as those mentioned above?

  • Maybe you use flour, sugar, olive oil, and vanilla to create sweet confections that you share to build a bridge between you and a stranger.  I know this connection may seem unimportant; after all, it is merely a bridge of one. But it’s a bridge and a start. Imagine our power to effect change if billions of us created a bridge of one between ourselves and another fellowman. (Yes, it’s true: I know for a fact that freshly baked goods have the power to unite.)
  • Maybe you open your mind just wide enough to finally allow yourself to internalize the burden and trauma your fellowmen have shouldered for generations and vote in ways that create world peace and harmony.
  • Maybe you nurture the hearts and minds of the next generation so their minds are fertile enough to craft solutions our generation can’t even begin to conceptualize. Now, they’re equipped to correct the disorderly social legacy they will inherit.
  • Maybe [you name it]. In other words, look for ways to creatively connect with your fellowman and create a future that only some of us dream of. Yes, even the smallest acts of creation by billions of creators — each of us together — can have the might to create a tsunami of change.

In truth, a creator is anyone who deliberately expresses their inner world outwardly in a positive, life-affirming way to birth into existence something wonderful that didn’t exist before. Our times demand we expand our boundaries of thought of what it means to be creative. Because —

Our world is malnourished for innovative creators of justice, charity, beauty, goodness — anything that supports a healthy planet and a high quality of life for all and not just the few.


I write of the need for us all to be creators in a world that’s needlessly unimaginative when it comes to solving our social problems. It’s as simple as that.

6 thoughts on “Why Everyone Needs to Be a Creator”

  1. You are right on as usual. Let’s all let our creative juices flow and hopefully make a lasting change in this world 🌎

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  2. Let’s create more commonalities than differences with each other to bring us together. We are all human beings, so we share much we can build on. That old saying about walking around in another man’s shoe is true. Or as Elvis Costello said: “What’s so funny about Peace, Love, and Understanding”

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