Perhaps it’s the beautiful song whose words you understand for the first time, or the touching poem whose meaning hits home. Maybe it’s that one inspirational statement that you happen to overhear, or the profound quote you find online. Perchance the feeling comes while you’re watching a butterfly land on a flower or observing the frantic activity of a hive of bees. It could be anything, whether beautiful or ugly, big or small, question or answer. But whatever it is, it creates a spark, and the spark flows from your heart and into your blood until your whole body is on fire. That’s the feeling of energy.
It pulses through you, and suddenly you are really and truly alive, and you feel like bursting into song or ripping the world to shreds, shouting for joy or screaming in anger, laughing with happiness or sobbing with sadness. Caught up in the feeling, nothing else matters but that song, that quote, that butterfly, and how you want to make that feeling known to all the world. If only they could feel what you felt right now, the world would be complete. The energy pulses through you and you must let it out. Everyone must know!
Eventually, the feeling fades. The fire goes out, and only that first spark is left, and perhaps whatever you managed to scribble down describing the feeling. That spark is the beginning of art. It could be a story, painting, or song; poem, picture, or melody. It does not matter - it is art. How it is delivered is of no consequence, as long as it is delivered.
Yet you have only a spark, and a spark is not enough. So you blow gently on the spark, feed it wood, and shield it from the rain. The spark grows and develops, becoming more that it was. You nurture it ever so carefully. The world needs this spark, and its your job to deliver it.
After days, or months, or maybe years, you know the spark is ready. It is no longer a spark now. It is a fire, one that burns hot and furious, and pulls and tugs, trying to get free.
Still, you worry what people will think of it. It is your spark, your fire. If people criticize it, they are criticizing you. Not only that, but if the message of this spark does not get carried throughout the whole world, it will be your fault for presenting it as something less than it is, in a way that does not let it reach its full potential.
So you change the position of some of the logs, and add a few more sticks and twigs. Your attempt to delay the moment when you let your fire free does not succeed. It wants to get out. You know it is time to let it go.
In the end, you kiss the fire goodbye and release it for the world to see. Some will judge it harshly, and dismiss it for less than it is, but you and many others know it is more. Gazing upon the result of your hard work, and watching as sparks from your fire land elsewhere, you hope that those who are touched by your fire will nurture their spark and make them something more. Pride burns within your chest. You did this. You have changed the world. That is what it is to write, but not just to write.
That is what it is to create.
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