the happy creative

Happiness is…

Some may complete that with, “a warm gun,” others might say, “a choice.”

Even my own answer changes depending on the day (or even time of day) you ask me. I suspect it’d also change if you were to wake me from a dead sleep and scream it in my face. But please don’t.

Most of the time though, being creative makes me happy. Usually just thinking about creativity is enough.

I don’t believe there’s much debate on whether a strong link exists between happiness and creativity. But is one totally dependent on the other? Do you have to be happy in order to be creative? Is there more to it?

Happiness can be a fleeting thing, like a butterfly so easily blown by the ever changing winds of circumstance. If we can’t be our most creative selves without also feeling happy, I think we suffer a terrible setback.

What I’ve found to be a much more important ingredient to creativity is purpose and meaning—a sense that what I am doing matters.

While a happy feeling can come and go, purpose is a much more lasting foundation. When you feel your work is purposeful, you keep at it even when it’s difficult, even when the results aren’t what you expected or hoped for.

Apparently, I’m not the only one who feels this way, as Gareth Loudon reveals in his article:

How a sense of purpose can link creativity to happiness

While it doesn’t always spring forth from happiness, purpose is often accompanied by strong emotion. So if it makes you feel something deep down inside, something that stirs your soul, then there’s a good chance it’s worth your time.

This isn’t a practice accepted by all, but I like to make a distinction between happiness and joy—the former a more circumstantial, surface feeling. That being the case, working on something purposeful over a long time tends to develop a lasting joy, even if the effort was first conceived in fear, anger, or sadness.

Emotions are complex and even the definitions we give them don’t do the real thing justice. We tend to gravitate toward the “positive” ones because they feel good at the time, but every feeling matters and is important as part of being human.

By recognizing, appreciating, and then making something with our many and varied feelings, we become like a skilled painter who blends an array of colors into strokes of beauty.

It is the sense of purpose in our effort, the commitment to completion, the pursuit of creating something with meaning that results in a truly great work of art.

I don’t know about you, but when I see people pour their creativity into things that matter, especially when their project is the sort that reveals just how much other people matter, I tend to get pretty jazzed.