Why Creativity Needs Humanity to Truly Shine

The sound of wrapping paper tearing as I guessed at the secret those vibrant colors concealed gave ten-year-old me a unique hit of dopamine that my twitching fingers could hardly handle. In innocent disregard for the TLC that a friend’s parent—probably their mom—had put into making my birthday surprise a work of art, I’d shred that colorful paper to bits to unveil the present hiding underneath.

And as thrilling as those presents might have been, I knew the one my parents got me was the real trophy. In 1996, on my tenth birthday, after I’d annihilated a particularly beautiful wrapping job, I found a fantastic, space-age gem was all mine.

A Nintendo 64.

Gamers today can’t comprehend the unique revelation in entertainment that the N64 was. Up to that time, cinematic animation had been hand-drawn, and gaming had been 2D, mostly in blocky eight, sixteen, or thirty-two-bit renderings that lacked any real similarity to the real world.

Interestingly, entertainment is often viewed (if not treated) as an escape from real life. But the thing that was most compelling about the N64 was just how real it looked.

Creativity should always reconnect us to reality.

Even the most fantastic and surreal creative ambitions must somehow find their soul in the world beyond the page. The real world.

One of my favorite books I was made to read in school was The Giver by Lois Lowry. So I was naturally excited for its big screen debut in 2014. I’ll cut to the chase here and say, I hated it.

That’s not to say the movie wasn’t creative. It used black and white and color and attempted a fresh perspective on a classic. But in re-rendering the story, they forgot why the original was told in the first place. They made the fatal mistake of substituting creativity for character and sacrificed the most human elements of a masterpiece for flash and bang.

Creativity without humanity makes for soulless works of art. I find creative works with no point of reference in reality to be either obnoxious or irrelevant. Creativity for the sake of creativity is at best arrogant, and at worst callous. Creativity for the sake of humanity is a ministry. What leavens a work with power is its rapport with the world we live in.

Even the most outlandish and eccentric endeavors, sci-fi, fantasy, and the like, must teach and inspire in the here and now. For what would all the power of Heaven be, if it never touched Earth?

My book, Blades of Eternity and The Keeper of Peace, which is a work of children’s fantasy, is set to release in October of this year. One of the thrills of prelaunch is the early feedback. Recently, someone gave the book a glowing review, which soothes the nagging question, ‘Is this book really any good?’ But from the whole generous review, there was one line that stood apart. The reviewer wrote, “The characters truly stole the show for me…”

And they always should.

All our creative work needs breath and the beating heart of humanity. It is sobering that my Creator, in all his mighty creative work—from His Bible, to the canvas of our world, to my very being— has regard for me. So I should have regard for those whom my creative work might touch. Because soulless writing can never touch the soul of the reader.