“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”- Michelangelo

There are some people in history that just have an historic creative impact on history: Michelangelo, Leonardo (Da Vinci and DiCaprio! Okay one more than the other but the Titanic is truly iconic. Don’t get me started on the Revenant either…), Thomas Edison and his silent rival Nikola Tesla, Grandmaster Flash, Christopher Nolan, the list goes on and on and on. The question on mine and probably everyone else’s mind; how did they do it? How were they able to create things that will stand the test of time? How did they take an empty canvas, an empty script, an empty track, stare into the void of the depths of their minds and breathe life into that dead, dark place? How does anyone for that matter? What does it mean to create- to be creative? 

Call me romantic, but there’s something so beautiful about creation. About bringing something into this world to share or to simply to have for yourself. To set that idea free from the prison of your mind, to see the light of the sun and the warmth that it brings. From the first draft to the final finished product, the sense of accomplishment and the drive to make whatever we create better seems ingrained in us all. For the longest time, I felt like if I couldn’t draw (I got a C in art class in middle school), if I couldn’t play an instrument, I could never be creative. I simply did not receive the art gene from either of my parents. Neither of them made any art themselves, and they never cared to either. I just didn’t understand what it meant to be creative, or to create. 

But to create is to live. Every day that you wake up, you create. You create your outfit for the day, you create your playlist for the morning, you create your workspace environment, or if you’re like me, you created the mess all around your workplace that you tolerate until it’s time to clean it once more. Every single day in thousands of different ways, we as humans create. And even though some are more obvious than others on the lasting impact that it will have on the world, you never truly know where your creations will go. I’m positive the cavemen didn’t draw pictures of wooly mammoths expecting humans to still see these petroglyphs thousands of years later. I’m sure the Egyptians hoped that the pyramids would last forever, but never could fathom how much of a tourist trap Giza would become (or even what a tourist trap is in the first place!). The common denominator with the pyramids and with your shoe selection today, is that you joined the long and endless stream of creatives, creating the beautiful world that we live in. 

The beautiful thing about being creative is that you don’t have to be the people listed above to make something beautiful. I don’t have to be Michelangelo or James Hoffman in my case to make good coffee beans. I just have to wake up, seek to create something that I love, and when I get there, share it with as many people as I can. I don’t know who will read this or if anyone needs to hear this, but if you think you aren’t creative, that is simply not true. You are creative. You create beautiful things every day. Continue to create, and don’t forget to share some of your creations along the way. And don’t forget to see mine too!