« Why I write? I never ask myself the question. I just do it. It must be the same for painters and composers. If you want me to get deep about it – to the extent that I can – I think humans create art because art is useless, and this uselessness reflects the uselessness of the human conscience. Our intelligence, our capacity for introspection, our extraordinary verbal ability – all are utterly unnecessary to our survival. Animals do without them. The absurdity of our ability needs an echo, a reflection, a companion. Ergo art.
Why I spend four years of my life writing a novel, putting everything into it, mortgaging my future, I don’t know. The sense of it being right and deeply pleasurable is so powerful that I don’t feel the need to search further. »
Yann Martel in The Notebooks, interviews and new fiction from contemporary writers, edited by Michelle Berry and Natalee Caple.
Creativity is far from ‘useless’. It’s the driving force of civilization! At the dawn of humanity it was something one human could do better than another (thus proving their worth as mates) without killing the other human in the process. That’s why we’ve evolved into humans today! I’d hardly call that « useless ». Creative types are so hopelessly stupid sometimes. :P