I started taking a psychology class on creativity and last week’s reading included the intro to “The Creative Process,” a 1952 anthology by Brewster Ghiselin. It includes letters, reflections, and insights from artists and thinkers about how creativity unfolds.
One passage that struck me reference a letter from Vincent van Gogh to his brother Theo. He wrote in 1880 about feeling “imprisoned,” unable to create, yet alive with a sense of possibility:
“The man who is doomed to remain idle, whose heart is eaten out by an anguish for work, but who does nothing because it is impossible for him to do anything, because he is as it were imprisoned in something. Because he hasn’t got just that which he needs in order to be creative. Because the fate of circumstances has reduced him to a state of nothingness … Something is alive in me: what can it be!”
I read this and felt a deep recognition. I, too, have felt restless — like I’m never quite satisfied, always itching for the next project, or just to get a move on to SOMETHING. For a long time, I judged myself for it, wishing I could just feel content, thinking that life would be so much easier if I could be. But this class (and Van Gogh’s honesty) has helped me see it differently: this dissatisfaction isn’t a flaw. It’s part of the creative condition.
Another line from the book describes “the restlessness of the inventor” as unending — an appetite for discovery, a pull toward what’s not yet realized. I’m starting to embrace this idea: that being unsatisfiable might actually be a feature of creativity, not a bug. Restlessness keeps us searching, learning, and reaching for new ways to express ourselves, even though it’s frustrating to never feel able to settle down.
So if you’ve been feeling restless, too, maybe it’s not something to fix. Maybe it’s simply a sign that something alive in you is asking to be realized. Here’s to honoring the restless spirit — and to letting it guide us toward what’s next!
Want this content sent directly to your inbox each month, along with exclusive creativity prompts and news from my studio? Sign up for the Creative Play™ Newsletter and you’ll also get my free, 5-day Creativity Kickstart video series.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
