A comment posted today by The Stranger got me thinking about why we create and why we don't. Here is a quote from a book that I'm having my writing class read this fall, The War of Art, by Steven Pressfield [Warner Books, 2002]. Recall that Pressfield writes excellent historic fiction such as The Gates of Fire (about the Spartans at Thermopylae) and The Virtues of War (about Alexander the Great).

This is a short piece from his book:

The Artist's Life

Are you a born writer? Were you put on earth to be a painter, a scientist, an apostle of peace? In the end the questions can only be answered by action.

Do it or don't do it.

It may help to think of it this way. If you were meant to cure cancer or write a symphony or crack cold fusion and you don't do it, you not only hurt yourself, even destoy yourself. You hurt your children. Your hurt me. You hurt the planet.

You shame the angels who watch over you and you spite the Almighty, who created you and only you with your unique gifts, for the sole purpose of nudging the human race one millimeter farther along its path back to God.

Creative work is not a selfish act or a bid for attention on the part of the actor. It's a gift to the world and every being in it. Don't cheat us out of your contribution. Give us what you've got.