Creating the Intangible

For years I didn’t know why I was creative.

Why I wanted to act, sing or dance. Why I wanted to put thoughts and emotions into something tangible. Why I struggled with my artist friends to give shape and form to make the unseen seen.

I just knew that I had to create.

Then I read this quote… 

I create to bring life.

I create to season the bland, to give breath to the the lifeless, to instill hope in the hopeless.

To feel.

To be moved and move.

To transfer breath, time and energy.

I create because when I don’t, there’s a hole. The gap-space-gully trips me up. It trips other people up when I don’t create.

When I don’t write—like I’m doing right now—the words search for their home.

The words hover, hoping for an artist to give them voice. Hoping for a writer to pen them. Hoping for a painter to paint them. Hoping for a singer to sing them. The words wander and haunt until there is nothing but angst in the air.

The angst of unrelinquished words. (Tweet this)

That’s why I write.

I may have nothing to say.

I may be uninteresting.

I may be needy or aloof or too much of this and not enough of that.

But my words find a home here.

My words rest here. My words love it here.

My words are safe. Safe here.

But…

My words aren’t just for me.

That’s why you are reading this. Because I decided to share them.

That’s so very rewarding that something I wrote days, months or even years ago now lives on in your mind right now.

Legacy in words.

Legacy in paint.

Legacy in song.

All because an artist gave a home to his medium and decided to share.

Edgar Degas said that “art is not what you see, but what you make others see.” (Tweet this)

And that is one of the primary reasons why I’m alive.

Question: Why do you create?

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Author: Andrew Zahn

I'm a son, husband, dad, business owner, actor and good sleeper/eater. On this blog, I pave a highway for creative growth by providing food, water, and shelter for those wishing to live, work, and play with creative zest.

9 thoughts on “Creating the Intangible”

    1. I do KWYM 🙂

      I once heard Anthony Hopkins say something to the effect that if he weren’t creative, he would be a pretty scary person. I’m not saying that you or I are like that, but there is something to that.

  1. I create because I want to rather than have to. The second it becomes a chore instead of a joy it is no longer creation, it is simply production.

  2. Also I loved your quote but I couldn’t help but smile at the last few words because they conjured up the “Bring out your dead” scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. “I’m not dead yet…”

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