[Blarg]

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i just play music but the creative process is awesome, it feels awesome. you should read On Writing by steven king, he talks a lot about how great it feels to write stuff. a form of art is like a life pursuit and as you do it, you are thinking like 'wow i am improving, i am expressing my thoughts using the medium of my art'. seriously owns.

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There aren't a lot of people who don't enjoy money and at least on some level the recognition and approval by peers and "civilians" who are not necessarily their peers when it comes to work in some particular art form or type of achievement. That said, someone who is not merely a craftsman toiling indifferently but competently at a grindstone to pay the bills is probably usually motivated by something more than the most obvious and tangible rewards. MagicNinja gets to the heart of it, I think.

The world stymies and stifles people as a matter of course. Many people find either talent or personal expression in others threatening and feel that it demeans them by comparison. It can upset the order of things that some would prefer. Art also is, for most people, difficult to create to their highest standards, and even besides approval, one's very best artistic expression is not necessarily likely to result in any other rewards.

Therefore, creating is inherently optimistic. While creating, for a while, no matter how painful, tiring, or self-excoriating, the artist becomes an optimist and bets on himself. He may feel himself a poor or indifferent gamble anywhere else in his life, but the creative act is at the very least a defiant thumbing of one's nose at real or imagined limitations and an assertion of one's full humanity and powers. No matter how tortuous the process, artistic creation holds the promise that one can bet on oneself and win. In both the process and its products, creation can buoy, heal, exalt, and even share the soul. No wonder then that it can demand and be given it willingly.