critic or creator?

Today I keep having these moments where my own hypocrisy slaps me in the face, a figurative kick in the stomach that knocks the wind straight out of me. As a man I deeply respect says often, "It seems I want mercy for myself, but justice for my enemies." I want to be forgiven when I screw everything up, but I want everyone else to get their act together. I want to be loved the way I am, but expect my friends and family to be moral superheroes. What's with me sometimes?


It's much easier to be the critic than the creator. One sits back and judges the works of men, the other actually holds the stuff of life in his hands. He shapes and forms and directs, animating words on a page or colors on a canvas to become a powerful medium of human truth and emotion. There is no risk for the critic, no one threatening his eagle-eye view. He's not making anything, after all, and at the end of the day no one will hold him accountable for his opinions. For the creator, however, a great deal is at stake - career, reputation, integrity, and probably most vulnerable of all, his sense of worth of an artist. Yet for the same reason that the creator has much to lose, he also has everything to gain.


Most of us are skilled critics, full of scathing reviews and unforgiving evaluations, longing all the while to make a great masterpiece of our own. And as it turns out, when we try our hand at being the creator, taking the "stuff of life" in our hands, we become kinder to those doing the same. And at night, that time of day when our heads used to swirl with words of judgment, they now sink like anchors to our pillows. We sleep, and we smile, because today we have made something. We have risked it all, and tomorrow we will do it all again.