Are Creativity and Materialism Opposites?

I’ve been thinking a lot about what matters in life recently–specifically about focusing in on the things that matter, and trimming much of the rest.

One thing I keep returning to is creativity. Something I’ve noticed in myself is that when I’m in the middle of building something I have very little interest in acquiring new things. And when I feel idle and bored I get the urge to go to Best Buy (or somewhere online) to pick something up.

Why?

Because at that moment, when I’m not doing anything productive, I start telling myself that, “If I had this gadget it’d help me do x…”, which is usually crap. We can create whenever we want, really; tools are seldom the obstacle.

Anyway, the point is that I should be aware of this. Nothing makes me happier than creating things. So the next question is “what qualifies as creation”? This is a question I’ve been working on for some time now, and I’m going to have a separate post on it soon.

But in the meantime, if you get the urge to purchase something it might be a creativity void you’re trying to fill. And the gadget/widget/thing isn’t going to help. ::