How to turn the "pain you can't get rid of" into creativity

I’ve found that anything that applies to writing also applies to life. Problem-solving is a creative act. Conversations are creative. Parenting is creative. Falling in love, leaving your job, changing your mind—all creative acts. Creativity isn’t just about making art.

An abiding stereotype of creativity is that it turns people crazy. I disagree: Not expressing creativity turns people crazy. (“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you don’t bring forth what is within you, what you don’t bring forth will destroy you.”—Gospel of Thomas.) Bring forth what is within you, then,

PAIN is the truth of art. Art is not a hobby or a pastime. It is the result of an internal battle royal, one between the quest for safety and the desire to matter.

I believe that our creativity grows like sidewalk weeds out of the cracks between our pathologies—not from the pathologies themselves. But so many people think it’s the other way around. For this reason, you will often meet artists who deliberately cling to their suffering, their addictions, their fears, their demons. They worry that if they ever l

This pain is so uncomfortable, so challenging, and so destructive to the individual self, that your entire life is spent avoiding it. Your entire personality is built upon ways of being, thinking, acting, and believing that were developed to avoid this pain.

Creativity is not a solitary invention but a collaborative creation. Community offers opportunities for creative work to thrive, and that is a kind of magic we can all create.