milton glaser makes me pause

I've been reading up on Milton Glaser this morning... such a good writer and an amazingly accomplished designer. i like this part from his "Dark & Light" essay:

"There is a reason for all of you here to continue making things even though, vocationally speaking, this is the most difficult of times. The deepest role of art is creating an alternative reality, something the world needs desperately at this time. Everyone here today chose to be on the side of Eros, that is you’ve devoted your life of making things, rather than controlling things. I used to feel that it was strange that artists are self-anointed. Now I realize it could not be any other way because above all, art is a view of life itself. It cannot be given by others or taken away by dealers or marketing men. Real artists are always working for nothing because they don’t see their essential role in society as being simply to exchange goods. They turn up first in the anti-war demonstrations, not because they lack patriotism, but because they revere life.
Art is the most benign and fundamental way of creating community that our species has discovered. Mozart and Matisse, children of Eros, make us more human and more generous to one another."

I like to explore these bigger picture questions of why we create; write in blogs, knit, paint, make jam, dance... however you define our making. It definately is not a monetary drive and sometimes I question the "good" I am contributing to the world, and then I realize I don't need to reinvent the wheel in my thought process, but piggyback on to others.