This is Why We Make Stuff

Charity, her husband (and video producer) Ryan, and her daughter Nola Serenity

Today I watched a video by charitylongmusic.com [video no longer available]. Charity Long happens to be my sister (whom you can also find on Facebook), but I would love it no matter what. Because in it she has this totally brilliant revelation about why she should make music. I find it totally brilliant partly because I've had a very similar epiphany about my art-making.

We creative types sometimes look at the wealth of art already out there (so many good books! so many movies! so much music!), and we wonder why in the world we should bother adding to it. Then we hear a song (this was the case for both Charity and I) or we see a movie or we view a painting that flat out moves us. As in, it literally moves us from a bad mood to a good one or a place of fear to a place of confidence or an emotional storm to total serenity. And then we realize, "What if that person had looked at the vast amount of art and decided not to share theirs? Then I couldn't have had THIS moment."

And then we realize, we have to keep creating, because maybe there's a moment out there that needs us.