I was on iTunes making a playlist… and I thought to myself, how many bands are there? How many bands does the world need?
Yikes. That’s the wrong question, the worst ever, most art-killing question there is. So much of life, really, comes down to asking the wrong questions. This is the thing about art: it’s not about market demand. It’s not like trying to figure out if this town needs another grocery store or dry cleaner. It’s more like a million voices all yelling out one word over and over and over, and every once in a while the sound makes the whole world sit up straight and pay attention for a split second.
The world doesn’t need another band, per se. It doesn’t, strictly speaking, need another book or another photograph or another album. The general world population will survive without one more stage production and one more gallery showing.
This is the thing, though: you might not. We create because we were made to create, having been made in the image of God, whose first role was Creator. He was and is a million different things, but in the beginning, he was a creator. That means something for us, I think. We were made to be the things that he is: forgivers, redeemers, second chance-givers, truth-tellers, hope-bringers. And were certainly, absolutely, made to be creators.
If you were made to create, you won’t feel whole and healthy and alive until you do.
– Shauna Niequist, Bittersweet
So what is your passion?
What were you created to create?
What makes you feel whole and healthy and alive?