Creativity Speech

I compete in Academic Decathlon, this is my speech from sophomore year.

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When you think of the word fear, what do you think of? Is it something to overcome, or do you think of your own individuals fears? Some might think of clowns, or the dark, or even failure. Fear is an emotion, created by feeling unsafe or uneasy around something or someone.

So why do we feel fear around something as simple as creativity?

Creativity is described as the use of original ideas to create anything.

And when we take a step back and look at creativity in all it’s light, more often than not, we are suddenly terrified at how big that word is.

It might sound ridiculous on the surface to compare such a strong emotion like fear to something as joyous as creativity, but it is not far off. We have been groomed to fear failure since the beginning of our lives, though we don’t really know it. Society has tried to push off art as something that will only make you struggle, and something only the best of the best can do.

When we’re children, creativity is a hopeful word, something we all should strive to have. They are praises we give kids when they show us the art they bring home from school, or when they write a story all by themselves. We hang up their art on the fridge, and show it to every other adult. But as we get older, we don’t tell ourselves or others we’re creative. We stop hanging the art on the fridge, and put it in boxes. We sit on our creations silently while we try to separate ourselves from that word as much as possible, and that barrier we create between us and creativity is because of our fear of failure.

A natural response we all have is thinking that something we begin, we will sooner or later finish it. We think of the steps we need to take to get there, and how long it will take us to get there. We have these specific rules we need to follow, or sometimes not, to get there. But with art there is no real finish line, there’s no end. You’ll be improving until we’re able to hold a pencil in our hands to when we die, and if we can never improve, we can never “win” in the simplest sense of the word.

Our self-confidence relies highly on our success in life, and art induces failure as much as success. And failure in art is not the same as failure in any other field. Failure in art teaches you self-confidence and contentment. Failure in art keeps you hopeful, that you will be able to improve. Failure in art makes the success in art so much more rewarding.

But we don’t just fear for ourselves, we fear the consequences that come with failure. The term “starving artist” is brought up too many times when the subject of art comes up. Why? Because no one wants to be struggling. From a young age we are all told to get a good job, a good education to have a good life, and art is not where you go in search of wealth, and stability. We are so fearful of struggling to get by that we don’t enjoy why we get by in the first place. We don’t appreciate the beauty of art but instead cower in fear that we might have risked everything we had.

But we shouldn’t fear art, that is not why it’s created.

Art is created by people who want to express the life they live in, whether it be good or bad. So the term “starving artist” shouldn’t worry us in this world, if we want to live life to the fullest.

No one should fear art, but instead embrace, and take the risk that come with art.

Salvador Dali has once said “Have no fear of perfection- you will never reach it.” And that quote eases hundreds of minds as soon as it’s quoted. Because of our natural human fear of failure, and our natural human desire to strive for perfection, art takes the same form as venom for us.

Artist risk are always brushed off or shown as killer. Artist like Van Gogh are seen with their mental illness and barely scraping by. But artist like Walt Disney, none of us can say exactly what his struggle was on the top of our head. And though we all won’t be able to rise like two of the most famous artist, we can enjoy life to the fullest surrounded by something we loved.

In the sudden rush of life, we are always striving to be perfect, not human, because the world is leaving us behind. But art is not perfection, it is humane.