On Art, Meaning, and the Beautiful Addiction of Creating
People often talk about addiction as something destructive. Something that steals time, health, and purpose.
But there is another kind.
The kind that quietly wakes you before the alarm, not because you have to, but because something deep inside you has been awake all night.
People often say curiosity is the beginning of creativity.
For me, it isn’t.
Curiosity comes later.
What comes first is something I can hardly explain.
It feels like a power living somewhere deeper than thought. It does not ask whether I am tired, whether I have enough money, or whether anyone will understand what I make. It does not wait for the perfect moment.
It simply says,
“Come.”
And I follow.
Some mornings I wake with an urgency that makes no logical sense. Before coffee. Before the world begins speaking. I already know I need to go to the studio. I need to touch wool, linen, thread, yarn. I need to continue the conversation that somehow continued without me while I slept.
It is not discipline.
It is not ambition.
It is certainly not a search for success.
It feels more like answering a call.
If this is an addiction, it is one that gives more than it takes.
It asks me to wake up early.
To pay attention.
To keep learning.
To make one more stitch.
One more drawing.
One more experiment.
One more day.
The strange thing is that creating never really ends. Every solved problem reveals another possibility. Every finished piece opens the door to the next one. Instead of exhausting me, the work fills me with energy.
There are days when I spend hours adjusting something no one will ever notice, the way a lining sits inside a handbag, the tension of a single stitch, the curve of a seam hidden forever inside a garment.
From the outside it may look obsessive.
From the inside, it feels like listening.
Listening to the materials.
Listening to my hands.
Listening to that quiet force that always seems to know where the work wants to go before I do.
When I resist it, life becomes heavy. The days lose their colour. Time feels empty.
When I surrender to it, everything changes.
Hours disappear, but they are never lost. They are transformed into something tangible, a garment, a vessel, a memory stitched into cloth.
The more I create, the more meaningful ordinary life becomes. I notice colours I never saw before. I touch fabrics differently. I hear stories hidden inside old textiles. Nothing feels separate from the act of making.
Perhaps this is what people call purpose.
Not something I invented, but something that has always been quietly pulling me toward itself.
I cannot explain where this force comes from.
I only know that every time I obey it, I feel more completely alive.
So yes…
Art is my addiction.
But more than that,
it is the invisible power inside my being that leads me to create, shapes who I am, and reminds me, every single day, that life is worth waking up for.