Word Pirates

I do not think everyone should be a writer, but I do think that everyone should write… or paint, or craft, or build things, or bake. You can make a pretty strong argument that the point of life–or one of them anyway–is to create. Or maybe I just come from a family of artists/craftsmen, so life just looks that way to me.

Anyway, NPR has a good interview with Lynda Barry on the subject of creativity, which she wrote about in her new book What It Is. She talks about how it is strange that we can be so creative as children and then completely drop it when we reach adulthood.

“Something happens to us as we get a little older,” she says. “Adults would never consider [drawing] on a piece of paper and then just throwing it away afterwards. In fact, unless it’s valuable afterwards, most adults don’t think the experience was worth it. So that’s kind of what the book is about. It’s about what happens. What happens to that creative urge.”

It’s true, not everyone is creative–the world needs accountants, after all–but we can all create something. If nothing else, we can create life, which is pretty profound if you ask me, and points to the larger role of creativity in society. So why then have we become a society of observers and consumers? Screw that, America! There’s no joy in it. Break out the crayons.

~ Joy