Forum: We have fallen into reaction and away from creation

Published 1:30 am Saturday, February 21, 2026

I’m a life-long amateur artist. Not necessarily a talented one, but I don’t remember a time when I was not compelled to create something — anything. From organizing beach pebbles into patterns, only to watch them wash away in the incoming tide, to building a rocking chair. From doodles on the back of a napkin to an unfinished novel. Hastily carved figures around a campfire, short stories that have never been read, a “prayer hut” built from recycled fence material, and most consistently, music — played in a variety of settings, and in many styles. Never got famous. Never changed the world. Well, maybe I changed it a little, because I changed.

I’ve come to believe that, while not everyone is artistic, everyone is creative. Creativity characterizes all humans, whether they make art or not. Humans are the only part of the natural order that make things simply for the sake of making them. People create “un-artistic” things all the time. Managers create order. Researchers create clarity. Leaders create communities. It’s the same creative impulse that drives dancers and sculptors.

But for something to be truly creative, there must be an independent will to create. If a creator is reacting to something, they are not actually creating. Whatever they produce is, by definition, derivative of the thing they’re reacting to. I’m not talking about being inspired here, I’m talking about motives. When we are motivated to react to something else, we must understand we are not creating. We are re-arranging.

This is important because Western civilization is increasingly reactionary. We’re rearranging the same old components of our culture and getting frustrated that nothing is changing. We’re not creating much these days, and the effect is dragging us under a wave of despair. There are certainly pockets of creativity, but by and large, we are simply reacting – and despairing.

Movies, music and television are largely reactions to market forces. Some self-styled patrons of niche art may protest, but look at the chosen terms for your genre. Do they include words like “post-something,” “alternative,” “neo” or “progressive?” Then it’s reactionary. Same for “conservative,” “traditional” or “old-school.” These things exist only in reaction to something else.

Social programs largely react to the most significant need as opposed to creating new opportunities. Governments react to poll numbers rather than innovating. Churches and other institutions’ efforts center on damage control and reducing their loss of “market share.” Politics are almost exclusively reactionary. We wound up with Naked Emperor Trump and his Clown Parade because voters were reactionary. And opposition to Trump is just that: opposition. It is defined by what Trump is not instead of being creative.

AI, robotics, predictive markets, sustainable energy, cryptocurrency (though using some new tools) are making nothing new. They just react to the flow of dollars. Peel back the wrapper of most “social justice movements” and there is little which is truly creative. They are loose associations of privileged consumers, reacting to admittedly real problems, but mostly just making themselves feel better. Our relationships, our careers, our health care, climate change activism, this article! – mostly reactionary.

We’re in a creativity crisis.

Beyond policy and protest, there is proactivity; making something new imbibed with hope and promise; making something new just because it deserves to exist.

What if each of us stepped away from our media streams once a week, spent an hour or so in relative stillness and quiet, and reconnected with what we would make if we felt we had the time and freedom to do so? Something beautiful, good and true. What if we then created it? Maybe it will be artistic, maybe not, but whatever you make will stand out like a light in darkness, because it will be made of light.

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there” – Rumi

Dan Hazen lives in Marysville and works in Everett.