Creative Expansion in a Crumbling World

It’s easy to be excited about personal creative endeavors. As I read through writers’ and artists’ blogs and websites and watch YouTube videos, I’m struck by how many creatives are out there.

Over the decades I’ve been astounded by the amount of competition between us, as if we’re competing for limited resources (all too true when you’re a freelancer) or for limited audiences/readers/buyers. Competition between creative people disturbs me. I don’t think it’s healthy because, as a group, we’re naturally collaborative. Fighting over resources…well, that’s pretty awful and kills the creative spark.

I can personally attest to feeling undervalued in a world where true creativity is often funneled into money-making endeavors or used to serve individuals and businesses with no creativity at all. So often, we’re the grease that makes the wheels turn and, sadly, many of us get run over in the process.

What we forget (or are forced to forget) is that we have the power to can create things out of will and thin air. That’s a miracle. In a way, it’s transmutation of matter which has been called, alternately, high science, alchemy, and magic.

This contemplation comes to you on the eve of my first adult fiction book release. I’ve been thinking about what this means to me as a creative person and where I want to go from here. Although thinking isn’t quite the right word, I’m Be-ing with the experience. Who knows what miracles will come of it. Some have already started. I expect many more.

Once a creative door is opened, there’s no closing it. Once a creative person starts actively sharing their gifts, talents and inspirations, there’s no going back. We pour our gifts out upon the world and these gifts inspire others. It’s part of neotopia…something I’m going to talk a lot more about.

For now, I’ll end with this. The world seems to be crashing down around our ears. Everything looks grim. What if the catastrophic dystopian future we’re all expecting ends up being nothing more than a choice point for humanity?

We are not powerless, we’re creators. We all have something to share that we can do really, really well. And those things, whatever they are, are the keys to real change upon the Earth.

Welcome to Neotopia.