TLDR; We create whole worlds that transcend time and space in a finite universe ruled by entropy. Screw you, mortality.
Why do we create? Why do we sing, dance, play instruments, write books, design games, direct movies, paint, build, sculpt, draw, take photos, record videos, etc, etc, etc? As any other creature in existence, we're hardwired to eat, survive, and reproduce. Anything beyond that tends not to serve our evolutionary programming, so why do we humans almost exclusively take it a step further?
We create religions, myths, and legends and defend them with our lives. We pour our hearts into our music and stories, we spend large chunks of our lives and spend sweat and tears and sometimes even risk our lives to create things that do not promote the survival of the species. So what purpose does it serve and what drives us to do it? Is it God? I used to think so. I used to think we would not be the creative species we are if not for inspiration from a Creator. As I've grown older, I begin to blame (or credit) entropy.
The one thing we do not share in common with the rest of creation is a harsh realization of our mortality. We see death coming, and we know we can't escape it. We live in a universe where entropy is an unbreakable law, and even the universe itself cannot escape it. We can look out into space and see the birth and death of stars and entire galaxies. If such timeless entities cannot escape entropy, what hope do we have?
I think the same reason we create is the same reason we do anything else with such devotion and conviction. We can love our children and significant others with such ferocity that it's literally painful, and cling to stories and music so tightly that they affect our lives in ways that seem like illogical obsession. We see how temporary it all is and we fight it as though our lives depend on it, because in a way, it does.
I think about things like this when I'm watching our daughter be a typical two year old. She's beautiful, sweet, and scary smart (seriously, she knows how to circumvent parental controls on a Kindle to purchase things on Amazon much to the detriment of our fragile bank account). While I know she'll retain those traits as an adult (hopefully not the hacking and spending other people's money part), I can't help but mourn her loss already. It sounds morbid, but as she grows, I lose the version of her that I'm in love with at this moment. I haven't lost anything of her, and if anything, there's only more to gain. But a dozen years from now, we'll have a moody teenager hiding in her room instead of a tiny person who measures the quality of her day by how much time she spends on our laps, and can make us move mountains just to hear her giggle or say "hi, dada!" in the cutest f@#&ing voice I've ever heard. In a blink, that will all be over and we'll be planning prom and wedding and visits from grandchildren.
I can't help but curse our inability to get off this one way temporal ride, and kick myself when I find myself taking advantage of moments that will never happen again. Needless to say, this has me scrambling for my camera at the most random times, because I know there are no retakes. On the other hand, I can appreciate the ephemeral nature of it all despite the pain and regret it can cause, because without it, those moments in time that we cherish would lose their meaning.
I've written all this and still haven't made my initial point. I tend to let my mind wander, if I'm permitted to state the obvious. My point is, we are all temporary fixtures; not just our bodies, but our memories and impact on the world, also. Everything we care about is nothing more than a blip, and on even the most basic subconscious level, every half intelligent and self aware human being on the planet rejects this truth and fights it. We pour our souls into things that we can only hope will create a legacy and give ourselves a sort of permanency in a life that seems fleeting.
We create in order to cheat death. And we cling to the things that we create because they provide an outlet for our emotions in a world that has cheated us from experiences we can't have in our short lifespan because the real world dictates that we spend our lives making a living in order to survive, which I find to be insanely ironic. We live in a world that lacks a sense of timelessness; that expects us to spend precious time caring about Donald Trump's Twitter feed while we're working two jobs to make rent, instead of the preservation of concepts that outlive us all, such as selfless courage, camaraderie, adventures of a lifetime, the ultimate quest to hold back the tides of evil. Why else would a bunch of books or movies about halflings dropping a ring into a volcano evoke such depth of feeling in some individuals such as myself? We crave it, and very few of us get to experience it in this life.
Instead, we create these deep worlds with deep emotional contexts in songs and stories and images and monuments so that we might live on in it, and let future generations experience it, even if only in our minds. In a sense, the worlds we create with our minds are more real than this world because the thoughts and feelings they evoke can outlive the experiences of any one individual. I can listen to a song written 50 or 100 years before my time and be moved to chills or even tears. What's more real; that song, or the composer and audience?
If we fight entropy and death by creating something that both defines our humanity yet transcends it, does that not make us gods? We create whole worlds in our imaginations, and assuming we have a way to carry them on through collective memory or technology, those worlds outlive us all and have a chance to touch other beings, and to change their lives, challenge their beliefs, and impact their future. Isn't that what gods do?
Why do we create? Why do we sing, dance, play instruments, write books, design games, direct movies, paint, build, sculpt, draw, take photos, record videos, etc, etc, etc? As any other creature in existence, we're hardwired to eat, survive, and reproduce. Anything beyond that tends not to serve our evolutionary programming, so why do we humans almost exclusively take it a step further?
We create religions, myths, and legends and defend them with our lives. We pour our hearts into our music and stories, we spend large chunks of our lives and spend sweat and tears and sometimes even risk our lives to create things that do not promote the survival of the species. So what purpose does it serve and what drives us to do it? Is it God? I used to think so. I used to think we would not be the creative species we are if not for inspiration from a Creator. As I've grown older, I begin to blame (or credit) entropy.
The one thing we do not share in common with the rest of creation is a harsh realization of our mortality. We see death coming, and we know we can't escape it. We live in a universe where entropy is an unbreakable law, and even the universe itself cannot escape it. We can look out into space and see the birth and death of stars and entire galaxies. If such timeless entities cannot escape entropy, what hope do we have?
I think the same reason we create is the same reason we do anything else with such devotion and conviction. We can love our children and significant others with such ferocity that it's literally painful, and cling to stories and music so tightly that they affect our lives in ways that seem like illogical obsession. We see how temporary it all is and we fight it as though our lives depend on it, because in a way, it does.
I think about things like this when I'm watching our daughter be a typical two year old. She's beautiful, sweet, and scary smart (seriously, she knows how to circumvent parental controls on a Kindle to purchase things on Amazon much to the detriment of our fragile bank account). While I know she'll retain those traits as an adult (hopefully not the hacking and spending other people's money part), I can't help but mourn her loss already. It sounds morbid, but as she grows, I lose the version of her that I'm in love with at this moment. I haven't lost anything of her, and if anything, there's only more to gain. But a dozen years from now, we'll have a moody teenager hiding in her room instead of a tiny person who measures the quality of her day by how much time she spends on our laps, and can make us move mountains just to hear her giggle or say "hi, dada!" in the cutest f@#&ing voice I've ever heard. In a blink, that will all be over and we'll be planning prom and wedding and visits from grandchildren.
I can't help but curse our inability to get off this one way temporal ride, and kick myself when I find myself taking advantage of moments that will never happen again. Needless to say, this has me scrambling for my camera at the most random times, because I know there are no retakes. On the other hand, I can appreciate the ephemeral nature of it all despite the pain and regret it can cause, because without it, those moments in time that we cherish would lose their meaning.
I've written all this and still haven't made my initial point. I tend to let my mind wander, if I'm permitted to state the obvious. My point is, we are all temporary fixtures; not just our bodies, but our memories and impact on the world, also. Everything we care about is nothing more than a blip, and on even the most basic subconscious level, every half intelligent and self aware human being on the planet rejects this truth and fights it. We pour our souls into things that we can only hope will create a legacy and give ourselves a sort of permanency in a life that seems fleeting.
We create in order to cheat death. And we cling to the things that we create because they provide an outlet for our emotions in a world that has cheated us from experiences we can't have in our short lifespan because the real world dictates that we spend our lives making a living in order to survive, which I find to be insanely ironic. We live in a world that lacks a sense of timelessness; that expects us to spend precious time caring about Donald Trump's Twitter feed while we're working two jobs to make rent, instead of the preservation of concepts that outlive us all, such as selfless courage, camaraderie, adventures of a lifetime, the ultimate quest to hold back the tides of evil. Why else would a bunch of books or movies about halflings dropping a ring into a volcano evoke such depth of feeling in some individuals such as myself? We crave it, and very few of us get to experience it in this life.
Instead, we create these deep worlds with deep emotional contexts in songs and stories and images and monuments so that we might live on in it, and let future generations experience it, even if only in our minds. In a sense, the worlds we create with our minds are more real than this world because the thoughts and feelings they evoke can outlive the experiences of any one individual. I can listen to a song written 50 or 100 years before my time and be moved to chills or even tears. What's more real; that song, or the composer and audience?
If we fight entropy and death by creating something that both defines our humanity yet transcends it, does that not make us gods? We create whole worlds in our imaginations, and assuming we have a way to carry them on through collective memory or technology, those worlds outlive us all and have a chance to touch other beings, and to change their lives, challenge their beliefs, and impact their future. Isn't that what gods do?
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