Choose to Create Today. It’s Better than Consuming. And Far More Human.
Creation expresses what is most distinctively human in us.
We live in a world of consumers.
Indeed, consumption is often seen as a virtue.
If you consume, you help the economy (and your country). If you consume, you help your family (with the things they need). If you consume, you help yourself (by making life more pleasant or easier or productive).
Two Kinds of Consumption: Necessary and Optional
Of course, we do need to be consumers. Part of what it means to be human is to be dependent on the world around us. We need food. We need clothing. We need shelter.
But consumption also extends to things that we do not necessarily need: the latest phone, the most recent streaming service, the monthly subscription to a music service…
Call these two sorts of acquisition (1) necessary consumption and (2) optional consumption.
The Measure of Optional Consumption: Relationships
This sort of consumption is best measured on the impact it has on our life. Ideally, the availability of music and media and technology can shape our lives for the better.
I think that is the case if we allow these goods to bring us deeper into communion with the world and with one another. Fine art in the form of music and film, for example, can be an occasion to glimpse more deeply into reality and to share that insight with others.
Obviously, though, patterns of consumption can also take us deeper into unreality. Popping in our earbuds on the train or street can distance us from others. Streaming movies at night can distance us from friends or family. Working excessive hours to buy the nicest house or car or wardrobe can keep us from higher and more important goods.
We can thus measure consumption in terms of its effects: on the quality of our relationships. And in the degree that it brings us closer to communion with reality.
Creating versus Consuming
All of that said, the highest form of human expression is not consumption but creation. In classical theological traditions, to create, in the strict sense, is to make something out of nothing (ex nihilo). Humans, of course, cannot accomplish such a feat.
Rather, we create something from existing materials. But we fashion those materials, through our intellect and will and bodies, into something greater than they were before. The tubes of paint become a painting. The marble becomes a sculpture. The cloth becomes a dress.
We often think of creators as artistic lone geniuses. Michelangelo, Raphael, and Leonardo were certainly creators. And so we might not think of ourselves as creators—certainly not on that level. But to be human, to express the fullness of our humanity, is to create.
I am thinking about creation (creatio) here in a broad sense as making (factio). When you grind some coffee beans, measure them out, pass boiling water over it, and make coffee, you are creating or making something. Fixing a car, making a bed, decorating a room, writing a letter, building a spreadsheet, wrapping a present, making a meal—all of this is a making. Even more broadly, we might think of creation is bringing order out of chaos. We do as much when we make our bed, fold the laundry, and wash a car or bike.
In another broad (metaphorical?) sense, we create when we bring something from a lower state of actuality to a higher state of actuality. We are thus, in a limited sense, the artists of our lives. Not that we are purely blank slates. But we do share some authority over the virtues we cultivate, the decisions we make, the relationships we grow. We are co-creators with others in their lives as well.
Learn to be Bored: Creation and Patience
So, to create is to make something, to produce something, to bring something into a higher grade of existence. This sort of work is hard. It requires great patience. It requires persistence.
Consumption is fast. Creation is slow. Very slow. It takes an hour or two to watch a full movie (the time we pay). And we might give a few dollars to see it (the cost we pay). But making a movie from scratch can take millions of dollars, thousands of hours of work, collectively, and hundreds of people. Even more if you count the time it takes to learn the art of all that.
The act of creation is thus sometimes frustrating, boring, and difficult.
We think creating should be fast, whether it is a work of art, a project at work, or the formation of our own lives. But it is not. It takes hours and days to write an article that can be read in five minutes. It takes months or years to write a book that can be read in a day. That is okay.
So why bother with creating? Creation becomes a kind of gift to others—to see the world in a new and more piercing light. But apart from that service, it also allows us to cultivate our own abilities, to become what we are in a fuller way. In the process there is also a joy. To sing a song, even badly, is often more enjoyable than merely listening to one. The more we can become makers, the more we will be able to enjoy the process of creation.
Measuring Production: Look Beyond the Quantifiable
It can be helpful to count what we produce: words written, articles revised, songs produced, deals completed, houses built, and so on. But what matters more is the creative work of our ethical lives. But we can also get caught in the trap of counting our production and miss the more important things in life—things that are not always quantifiable.
Someone once asked a famous author, “Of all the books you’ve written, which is your favorite?” And he replied that it was the book he had not written, because that represented to him the time that he had spent with his children and family. That seems right to me.
Let’s choose to create something today—in our work, in our leisure, in our lives.