Why create?

Shaoqi He, Unsplash

“People who have a creative side and do not live it out are most disagreeable clients. They make a mountain out of a molehill, fuss about unnecessary things, are too passionately in love with somebody who is not worth so much attention, and so on. There is a kind of floating charge of energy in them which is not attached to its right object and therefore tends to apply exaggerated dynamism to the wrong situation.

The moment these people devote themselves to what is really important, the whole overcharge flows in the right direction, ceasing to heat up things not worth so much emotional attention.

The religious function is probably the strongest drive in the human psyche. If it is not directed toward its natural goal, it loads up the other areas of life and gives them an unmerited emotionality.”

~Marie-Louise von Franz, Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales

I’m not religious in the conventional sense of the word, although at times I wish I could be. Something in me refuses it and has done since childhood. I sometimes envy those who can believe in the orthodox fairy tales. It’s just that I can’t take them literally, nor can I adjust myself to the strictures of any organized belief system. I’m interested in the living wisdom that resides under the surface of religious systems, though. I just can’t practice the…