Making Stuff

It was the first in-class first writing assignment, and I could feel the anxiety permeating the classroom. The sound of pens scratching and keys clicking seemed particularly loud as the time limit approached. The instructor tried to gather us back and said something I’ve never forgotten: “Just remember, everything you are about to read never existed before.” It was a simple statement of fact, but it reminded me of one of the greatest things about being a human being: we get to make stuff!

Because it is a privilege we’ve always had, it’s easy to take our creativity for granted. As children, we never gave creativity much thought. We just got into the sandbox and went at it. No wonder life felt more like play than work. Along the way, school made creativity feel like an assignment or skill we needed to turn on and off as needed. It was also then that we were told or were made to feel creativity was disproportionately doled out to us. Then, after school, we got “real jobs,” and creativity was reserved for hobbies. In retirement, people often re-discover creativity and feel like children again.

The fact is, we, like the one who formed us out of clay, are born creative. That doesn’t mean we were all born to sing at the Met or have art hanging in the National Gallery. It means we are conduits for the creative spirit who moved over the waters millions of years ago, and swirls around us still. I think the spirit is kind of hoping we’ll be more like the children we once were and come out and play. Sometimes the pinstripes and suspenders get in the way, but bankers and lawyers have just as many opportunities to be creative as they solve their business challenges as a child wearing a smock with his or her hands deep in the finger paints.

The gift of creativity was given to us at birth, and, today, we have the chance to make something that has never existed before. If you ask me, that’s not a bad way to have spent the day!

Extra Credit

Count the opportunities you are given to make stuff this week.