On Creativity

My thoughts, probably not well organized, nor authoritative in any sense:
I think creativity (at least in writing) is selfish. I’m having difficulty combining the concept with altruism. I don’t think one can make stuff up just for others.
I heard on NPR about someone who wrote poetry with the hope she would “disrupt the common folk who pay the bills, watch TV and carpool” and lead them to deeper thought or some such nonsense. I don’t think the interview has been broadcast, and can’t find it, so it may be up later on the site.
If that’s the goal, you might need to teach them to read first, eh? Otherwise, those who already read our creative product are in the window as we write. I’m just running this through my head as I type, but it seems a sound train of thought. And they haven’t changed yet, have they? Khalil Gibran is as moving a read as they get, and the world hasn’t kicked to a new orbit, nor has Heinlein, on the opposite end of the writing spectrum done so. I’m certainly no source of personality able to affect the world.
My work, I think (have convinced or deluded myself) is ultimately for me. I avidly soak up the reviews I get from others (heck, I fish for it as best I can), but I don’t think it reaches anyone without me first.
The goal certainly isn’t to convert anyone to my train of thought, or to convince them of anything I believe. I don’t think (and I may be wrong since I’m trying to analyze something outside my little bubble) that I can disrupt someone else’s think with my own think.
Altruism sure seems more likely to manifest in forms of writing such as essays and advertisements. Politics and all that mess deal with trying to convert people to some awareness. Make sense?
My work is initially designed to draw a picture for me. Then, hopefully, it draws a reaction from an audience. Sure, that reaction is keyed specifically in nearly every piece, but it’s gotta work on me first. So am I foisting my emotions and dreams off on my reader? Or am I simply displaying my laundry to whoever may be passing by, with no desire to see a change in them?
I could certainly hope to affect You, reader, but that’s a pipe-dream when I finally stop and think on my work. Better to use a phone, email or snail and lay out my wants in clear text so the audience at least knows what to refuse and in what form, polite or curt, the response should be. It’s safer than offending a writer (see disease reference below) by responding to the art.
In the end, the reactions of the reader certainly don’t produce any dependable change, that I’ve seen. I mean, I have not, that I know, written some spell into my work that makes You fall in love with me, or You understand where I’m coming from, or You forgive me for whatever it was, or You appreciate the thing I want (theoretically leading You to try to get me the thing I want). I don’t think it’s worked as yet, anyway, hah.
I’ve probably talked myself into a corral at this point, but it’s not the first time. Maybe going back to this I’ll sort out the point.
I’ll defer to Heinlein on one thing: Writing is a disease. It’s symptoms are a need to produce, regardless of anything but the production itself, words. The writer is historically known to become moody and unpredictable as the affliction progresses. Acute cases of symptoms can closely resemble those of rabid animals, specifically foaming at the mouth, a tendency to bite if interrupted in the writing process, and general irritability bordering pure viciousness. If deprived of the means to write (writing is incurable), the patient suffers as if from caffeine or nicotine withdrawals, becoming shaky, paranoid, sleepless, and generally unfit for social interaction (this last bit rarely distinguishable from the normal personality of the writer).
This alone may be enough to defend the idea that creativity when applied to writing is not altruistic. We either write to get money, get something off our chest, or just because the paper is useless without some incoherent scribble marring it’s purity.
Whatever.