You are going to have to give and give and give, or there’s no reason for you to be writing. You have to give from the deepest part of yourself, and you are going to have to go on giving, and the giving is going to have to be its own reward. There is no cosmic importance to your getting something published, but there is in learning to be a giver.

Therefore, my dear sir, I know no advice for you save this: to go into yourself and test the deeps in which your life takes rise; at its source you will find the answer to the question whether you must create. Accept it, just as it sounds, without inquiring into it. Perhaps it will turn out that you are called to be an artist. Then take that destiny upon yourself and bear it, the burden and its greatness, without ever asking what recompense might come from outside. From the creator must be a world for himself and find everything in himself and in Nature to whom he has attached himself.

A theologian would say that a creative person participates in the Creator’s work. The creation of the world is an ongoing project, and part of the divinity of the human being—an idea cherished by Renaissance philosophers—is to add to that process.

Creativity is not just about making fascinating inventions or great works of art. It has to do with shaping your life and cultivating your very soul.

Creating the smallest living thing, creating life, no matter how small, is greater than creating a vast dead planet. A thing that lives is a universe.