It's true. If we weren't desperate, we would have no need at all to do anything new.
Remember that saying, "Necessity is the mother of invention'? Necessity and desperation are the same thing.
We need to fix something. We need to save someone who is hurt. We need to feed our families. We need to find work. We need to put this big pile of stuff into that not-big-enough space. We need to get a long list of stuff for school with a short list of resources. We need to entertain our kids or ourselves. We need to do something harder than we have done before. We need to finish what we've started. We need to see if we can build/make/write/compose something from nothing. We need to know if we can take an idea and make it real. We need to satisfy our curiosity.
Creativity is born out of all that need.
It's easy to let creativity take a back seat to other stuff: Other stuff takes our money, our energy, our space our time, our focus. We give priority to our families, our jobs, our pets, our house, our lawn, our friends. That's normal. That's appropriate.
This exercise is for those of us whose creativity needs to be unshackled for a little while and let out for a walk. This is for those of you who are desperate to feel creatively alive again.
Task: Find 10 beautiful things inside your house. Take a picture of them or draw them or write them or compose them.
That's it. Think outside the box. Look at the cobweb in the corner with new eyes. Spray it with water and take a picture of it. Look at how the books on your bookshelf have beautiful lines when you tip your head over and look at them sideways. Look at the texture of that old drawer pull. Listen to the music of the dryer.
There are 100 beautiful things in the same room you're in right now. Find 10 of them and tell me about them.
Good luck. Keep in touch.