Is Creativity Still Worth It?

We’ve entered a bizarre moment in culture where every creative act is automatically put on trial. (Or sus as my tween would say.) If your writing is too sharp, too fluid, too well-structured? Must be AI. If your illustration is too polished, detailed, maybe even beautiful? AI. And if your work is messy, uneven, or objectively bad? Somehow, that too is suspected to be AI.

It’s a strange bind. No matter what you make, you’re guilty until proven human.

That’s how we’ve landed in a world where “advice gurus” now recommend dropping typos into your copy on purpose. Imagine that. Mess up your spelling so people know you’re real. Typos as proof of life. Typos as war scars. This new wisdom says messy = human, polished = fake. As if refinement is no longer something to be celebrated but something to be distrusted.

But creativity was never about the flawless product you hold up at the end — it was about the messy, grueling, beautiful process it took to get there. The drafts no one saw. The false starts. The crumpled-up paper, the deleted paragraphs, the late-night “aha” moment that finally made something click. That process is where the magic happens. It’s where growth happens. It’s how we develop thought, empathy, and any kind of understanding of the human condition.

And for most of human history, we’ve valued that. We revered our painters, poets, musicians, and inventors not just because they could make pretty things, but because they pushed us forward. Their work revealed new ways of thinking. They helped us make sense of chaos. They reminded us of what it means to be alive.

Now we’re in danger of throwing that all away. We’re normalizing creativity without process, art without struggle, words without thought. And it’s no coincidence that our sense of humanity feels thinner at the exact same time. Because the process of making — the trial-and-error, the time, the attention, the very living through it — builds the human parts of us. Shortcut that, and you shortcut everything.

So is creativity still worth it?

Yes. Of course it is. Maybe more than ever. Because while the outcome can be faked, the process never can. And if we abandon the process, we’re not just abandoning creativity — we’re abandoning the very thing that makes us human in the first place.