The quiet rebellion of creativity over consumption

Your tiny acts of creation matter more than you could know

In a culture that demands consumption, creativity is a radical act.

Photo by Jessica Ely on Unsplash

Capitalism thrives on consumption. That’s how it works. Things are produced, people consume those things, the people at the top make lots of money, the people in the middle make a little bit of money, and the people at the bottom get shit on. But for this system to work, you have to believe that’s their own fault for not working hard enough.

The things that are produced have to be disposable. They can’t be built to last or to be reused, because then there wouldn’t be more consumption, and the system would collapse. The people at the top wouldn’t be able to make infinite amounts of money from everyone else. So we have been taught to live in a disposable world, where the planet is seen as a resource to be made use of, and we are conditioned to see our value as humans in relation to how much stuff we get through.

It’s not doing any of us much good, though. Well, apart from Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos - they’re doing just fine out of it. (Financially, anyway. Emotionally… not so sure.) The rest of us are anxious, overwhelmed, burnt out, surrounded by clutter, and seeing our finances stretched ever thinner. We’re disconnected from each other, from the planet, and from ourselves. We’re falling behind the expectations of this system, and finding it increasingly impossible to keep up, leaving us in a pit of shame and depression.

It’s not doing the planet much good, either. We’re going through the bounty of nature at an alarming rate, destroying forests, waterways and entire species in our quest for more, more, more. And as much as the system has tried to construct a narrative that sets us above and apart from plants and animals, that positions them as something for us to make use of, we’re actually incredibly dependent on them all. To put it bluntly, if we fuck this planet up, there isn’t a back-up option. We will simply be doomed.

Ok, that’s all a bit bleak. Let’s think about what we can do about this.

I had the pleasure this week of being interviewed by the amazing Claire Venus ✨ for her podcast. Claire is such an inspiration and guiding light for creatives blazing their own trails, and she’s been a valuable mentor to me.

We spoke a lot about creativity as a form of activism, including how radical it is to choose creativity over consumption. Here’s a little clip:

I wanted to hammer this point home a little bit more - your creativity is deeply, revolutionarily radical.

This society conditions you to keep on buying, keep on upgrading, keep on getting more and more and more. It makes you feel scared and insecure and deficient, so that it can sell you supposed solutions that you must always be replacing and upgrading. It teaches you to hoard for yourself, never to share, which means distancing you from other humans. On top of that, it tries to keep your brain constantly overloaded - keep on working, keep on feeding the machine, don’t stop to think, and don’t ever leave room to imagine other possibilities for the world.

In this environment, what a subversive and paradigm-shifting choice it is to create something.

Instead of leaning into the take, take, take mentality… making something new.

Instead of churning through disposable item after disposable item… carefully crafting something of quality.

Instead of hoarding stuff for yourself… putting something out into the world to share with others.

Creativity challenges the system’s attempts to divide us. By sharing our stories, our art, our perspectives on the world, our contributions to our communities… we build connection, understanding and empathy. We learn about each other, and others learn about us. We start to see one another as not so different, maybe even related.

Creativity rebuilds the self-esteem that the system tries to crush. Creating something - even something imperfect, even something that we think is a bit crap - gives us a sense of achievement. We express our deepest thoughts and feelings and, in so doing, we build a relationship with our inner selves. We start to be able to hear our inner thoughts and hopes and desires.

Then there’s our imaginations. Creativity opens up space for possibility. For dreaming. For thinking about different ways the world might be… then, just maybe, it shows us the steps to build a new, better, reality.

We can’t all start hand-crafting all our own clothes, and growing all our own food, and drop out of consumer culture altogether. Or even to a significant degree. I’ve daydreamed about it often enough, but then I remember that I can barely keep a houseplant alive, and that it takes me six months to knit a single jumper. We’re not going to overhaul the entire system with a single flourish of our watercolours. But. Small acts can lead to big shifts.

Every creative act is a tiny ripple in the ocean of our culture. Each time you choose to sit down and create, or dream, or imagine, or share… each word you write, each sketch you draw, each row you knit, each patch you sew, each loaf you bake… it all creates the slightest of ripples. It seems so little, from where you stand, inside your small circle. This drop within the vast ocean. But. Imagine all the ripples from all your creative acts. Then imagine them combined with the creative acts of your friends. And their friends. And their friends. Imagine how many of us, all around the world, are engaged in our tiny acts of creation. How many ripples is that?

How many ripples does it take to create a wave? How many waves do we need to change the shape of a rock? Slowly, slowly, ripple by ripple, we create a sea-change that alters the consciousness of our culture.

For this capitalist, patriarchal, white supremacist system to work, we have to believe its stories. All cultures, all systems, are founded on stories. The stories we accept about our place in the world, our relationship to each other, our relationship with the planet, what matters in life… these stories shape everything. When we challenge the dominant narrative, when we reject the myth of consumption, and instead tell a new story about the value of creativity, then we start to crack the foundations of the existing system. We open up the chance to build something new.

So don’t, even for a second, think that the short poem you wrote, the tune you strummed, the cake you made or the flower you grew were small things. Never believe that they were frivolous, that they didn’t matter. They are more important than you could ever know.

You are part of something far bigger than yourself. We are woven together, all across this beautiful planet, and each time one of us picks up a thread to make something new, we contribute a tiny stitch to the fabric of a brand new society.

This is a rebellion. A revolution. And every act counts.

What small act of creativity will you take this week?

P.S. Creativity can be revolutionary for your mental health, and a Creative Fix membership gives you access to a range of creative therapy tools. For the rest of 2025, 10% of all profits from the membership will be donated to the charity Hope Not Hate, to support the building of a better, more connected society.