"Creativity is not merely the innocent spontaneity of our youth and childhood; it must also be married to the passion of the adult human being, which is a passion to live beyond one's death"
About this Quote
Rollo May casts creativity as a union of two forces that are often kept apart. Childlike spontaneity brings freshness, surprise, and the joy of play, but on its own it tends to evaporate as quickly as it appears. The adult contribution is not the loss of wonder; it is the addition of commitment, discipline, and a forward-driving purpose. By saying creativity must be married to adult passion, May emphasizes that invention gains its power when it is tethered to responsibility and an intention to shape something that lasts.
The phrase "passion to live beyond one's death" is not simple vanity. It names a basic existential impulse: the need to matter in a world where our time is finite. For May, a leading voice in existential psychology and author of The Courage to Create, the awareness of mortality can sharpen rather than paralyze the imagination. Anxiety about finitude becomes a source of energy that, when harnessed, pushes us to craft works, relationships, and institutions that endure. Creativity becomes a way of negotiating with time, transforming raw experience into forms that can outlive the maker.
The marriage metaphor also suggests mutual correction. Without the child's spontaneity, adult passion hardens into ambition and control; without the adult's commitment, spontaneity dissolves into fleeting novelty. True creation needs both play and persistence, improvisation and mastery, inspiration and revision. It requires courage to face uncertainty, to risk failure, and to take responsibility for the cultural consequences of what one brings into the world.
May is pushing back against a romantic picture of creativity as pure impulse or divine accident. He argues for a mature creativity that is ethical as well as expressive, anchored in the reality of limits yet striving to surpass them. To create, then, is to turn the brief spark of life into a beacon that continues to burn, illuminating paths for others long after we are gone.
The phrase "passion to live beyond one's death" is not simple vanity. It names a basic existential impulse: the need to matter in a world where our time is finite. For May, a leading voice in existential psychology and author of The Courage to Create, the awareness of mortality can sharpen rather than paralyze the imagination. Anxiety about finitude becomes a source of energy that, when harnessed, pushes us to craft works, relationships, and institutions that endure. Creativity becomes a way of negotiating with time, transforming raw experience into forms that can outlive the maker.
The marriage metaphor also suggests mutual correction. Without the child's spontaneity, adult passion hardens into ambition and control; without the adult's commitment, spontaneity dissolves into fleeting novelty. True creation needs both play and persistence, improvisation and mastery, inspiration and revision. It requires courage to face uncertainty, to risk failure, and to take responsibility for the cultural consequences of what one brings into the world.
May is pushing back against a romantic picture of creativity as pure impulse or divine accident. He argues for a mature creativity that is ethical as well as expressive, anchored in the reality of limits yet striving to surpass them. To create, then, is to turn the brief spark of life into a beacon that continues to burn, illuminating paths for others long after we are gone.
Quote Details
| Topic | Legacy & Remembrance |
|---|---|
| Source | Rollo May, The Courage to Create, W. W. Norton & Company, 1975. |
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