Creativity as an Act of Defiance

We are making birds, not bird cages.

One of the most difficult things in life is to declare yourself as . . . yourself.

Among the first questions people ask when they meet each other is, “What do you do for a living?” or “Where are you from?” Humans have a deep-seated need to swiftly put people into a neat category and place them safely in a box. To be from Peoria puts you in a different category than if you’re from New York City. To be a lawyer puts you in a different category than if you’re a waiter.

We act out these categories to some extent as well, even though we’re so much more than those check boxes of identity: teacher, student, plumber, doctor, mother, son. We adopt a persona for the role we have and wear different masks as the situation demands. Our roles can certainly feel comfortable and true enough, especially the more we become habituated to them, but they aren’t necessarily the definition of who we are.

There’s always another side, or sides, of a self, many of which are hidden. For example, there aren’t many opportunities to tell the world — and yourself — that you’re a writer, that you spend hours in your non-persona time conjuring weird and scary tales, putting decent human beings in situations fraught with peril, painting pages with descriptions of other worlds, and…