March 5, 2025
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep.”
—Genesis 1:1–2a
Humans create things. We’re made for it. In a world that is chaotic and crazy, the creative impulse pushes us to bring order to chaos.
The law of entropy when applied on a universal level means that disorder and randomness is gradually increasing all around us. Everything skews toward chaos. On a universal scale, this is gradual, almost imperceptible during a human lifetime, but taken to a micro level of the human life, we feel this entropy daily. Our lives are gradually becoming more chaotic and disordered each day. Creativity is how we put a halt to that. Creativity is how we bring back a little order to the chaos.
Every day, our bodies deteriorate a little bit. Our heart beats away and will one day run out of beats. Our muscles start to atrophy. The food and drink we had yesterday pass through us and leave us hungry all over again. If we don’t continue to eat, we will end up in diminished health. The process of disorder and decay doesn’t take long.
What do we do to stop it? We exercise to build up our muscles. We eat nutrition-dense foods and stay hydrated with water while avoiding certain foods and drinks that will adversely affect our lives and health. We sleep. We do these routines and rhythms of life that build our bodies and help slow or stop the process of decay and disorder, and when we fail to do so, we feel it. Stay up all night, feel exhausted and have a headache the next day. Skip eating for a day and you’ll feel hungry. Take a week, month, year off from working out and you’ll begin to slowly notice that you feel weaker and may get winded walking up stairs or performing tasks once considered “normal.”
These are external things we do. But what about creativity? This is an internal process first. It is how we nourish our lives, because life is not just about staying alive, but truly living. We create relationships, marriages, families, homes, gardens, music, movies, paintings, photographs, drawings, and writings. These external creations all start with internal intentions of creativity. Now, in our modern culture, these things are seen as luxuries or hobbies. They are extras. Nice things, but not the stuff of life and existence. What we do to afford and have the luxury of those things is our life: the jobs we work, the money we make and save, our gender, religion, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. These “identities” are what make up and influence our lives and creativity.
Being a creative is not a valued identity. Unless somebody becomes wealthy, famous, and successful in a creative industry, you would be hard pressed to find someone who willingly identifies themselves with a creative act. If you meet someone who writes, they don’t often call themselves an “author” or “writer” unless they make money doing so. We do not value creativity for the sake of creativity. We value results.
And the result of this kind of thinking…
Creativity is stifled. Entropy kicks into gear. That part of us atrophies and slowly dies until all that is left is chaos and disorder.
This is not how we were designed to live. The creative act is ingrained in us. So, while you may never get rich being a “creative,” the first step to creativity is to change your mindset. I am made to create things. If nobody else ever sees, reads, or acknowledges what I create, that doesn’t diminish the creative act. Creativity is not about results. Creativity in and of itself is a result, a mind pushing back against chaos to make something good in a world that often seems formless, empty, and dark.
What we are doing here is encouraging the expression of creativity in books. Join us to learn more and follow along. We hope this sparks your creativity and brings some good to your life. And if you are interested in writing and publishing, I hope this helps in your journey. Subscribe to our website (andersonhousepublishing.com) to get updates on blog drops, or follow us on Instagram @anderson_house_pub.