The Courage to Create

By: Rollo May

“Creative courage is the discovery of new forms, new patterns on which society can be built.” — Rollo May

What is the one quality possessed by all geniuses? How can we acquire creative courage? What takes place in the creative instant? How can creative power make your life richer and more satisfying?

These are the themes that American existential psychologist Rollo May set out to explore in his 1975 book, The Courage to Creative. May, his whole life, was haunted by the burning question: why create? What’s the deeper meaning behind the creative act? Why are certain individuals called upon to depart from the well-worn path and bring into the world something new?

These ponderings led the great psychologist to believe that we express our BEING in the act of creation. It’s how we give form to our inner life. “It is,” in his words, “the struggle against disintegration, the struggle to bring into existence new kinds of being that give harmony and integration.”

Below, I have put together a few stimulating passages from this vital book to hopefully help spark your own “Promethean impulse” to create… dangerously. This book, read in its entirety, would be well worth your time.

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The Courage of the Creative Act

“If you do not express your own original ideas, if you do not listen to your own being, you will have betrayed yourself. Also you will have betrayed our community in failing to make your contribution to the whole.”