Is Creativity a Right or a Privilege?

Once upon a time there was a void, in an abandoned region of the universe, tucked between the spiral arms of two colliding galaxies. There floated a space station unlike any other: The Garden Between. Built upon the skeletal remains of a long-forgotten asteroid, it was a sanctuary of art, biology, and silence—a creative retreat in the void of space.

It was founded by an artist-engineer who had grown tired of Earth's commercial noise and Martian bureaucracy. She believed creativity needed space—a literal space—to thrive, to grow, to breathe again. So, she towed scrap from ruined satellites, harvested solar crystals from rogue comets, and programmed a fleet of gardening bots to cultivate her vision - her own Garden in this galactic space out of her imagination.

The station was not just functional; it was alive, it was breathing a creative air. Vines with bioluminescent tendrils curled through corridors like lazy nebulae. Petals the size of solar sails opened each morning to greet the twin suns. The oxygen systems were integrated into the chlorophyll lungs of genetically engineered trees that sang in radio frequencies, creating music only deep-space travelers could hear. Colorful shiny tubes carried fancy travel bots in the sky.

Here, creators came from every quadrant—painters from the moons of Jupiter, poets from cloud cities above Venus, andarchitects from Ceres. They weren't visitors. They were collaborators in a living, breathing work of art. They came here not as an escape but to live the art. One room, the Echo Chamber, reflected not sound but thought. A writer could sit there and hear their ideas spoken back to them by the station's AI, which learned each resident's creative rhythm.

But not all was serenity.

One day, a strange object drifted toward the Garden. It wasn't on any map, and it didn't broadcast a signal. It was a cube—cold, black, matte—absorbing light like a dying star. Absorbing everything that came in its path. When it arrived, the vines withered. The flowers folded shut. The music of the trees fell silent.

She, older now, with silver threaded through her locks, stood before the cube in the Garden's center. "What are you?" she whispered.

The cube spoke—not in words, but in unmaking. It began to erase. Paintings dissolved into blank canvases. Poems untangled into silence. Dreams unremembered. It was entropy, collapse, the antithesis of creation.

But She was creator, with a brain of inventor and heart full of emotions. She could sense the pain of cube, its creative exile. Its vengeance was a result of artistic starvation. She knew the exact pain from her past.

She raised a hand, and the station responded. Petals flared open like shields. The AI amplified the forgotten symphonies of dead stars. The Garden fought not with weapons but with beauty—defiant, wild, uncontainable. The cube cracked. From its darkness spilled a single image: a child's drawing, scrawled in crayon—stars, a spaceship, a stick-figure girl smiling in zero-G. The child whose right to imagine and dream was stripped away by social pressure and circumstances.

She touched it. The cube shuddered and crumbled into ash.

In its place grew a new flower: dark, yes, but rich, velvety and deep—its petals woven from grief, memory, and mystery. Not all creation was light. Some beauty came from the edge of ruin.

The Garden Between lived on, more complex, more complete.

And in its newest chamber, artists gathered to paint with shadows, write with silence, and remember the cube—not as a threat, but as a reminder:

Creativity is not just what we build but what we survive.

We often talk about creativity as if it's universal—something everyone has access to, something we all express naturally. But step back, and the question becomes more complex: Is creativity truly a right—or has it quietly become a privilege?

In theory, creativity is innate. Children draw before they write. We all tell stories, hum melodies, and imagine impossible futures. But in practice, the space to be creative—time, tools, education, mental freedom—is not equally distributed. A single parent working two jobs may not have the luxury to paint or write poetry. A student without access to art supplies or music lessons might never discover their talent. Even in adulthood, many people are told creativity doesn't "pay," so it's boxed up and buried beneath more "practical" choices.

Their choices are reflected in dust ridden guitar, that sketch book in the attic. That forgotten melody. That unfinished sculpture. We trade our creativity for surviving in this expensive world. Did we fail as a society? As we can not give our children a choice. A choice, a peace, a mental satisfaction - a gift of creativity.

And now, with AI capable of generating art, music, and writing at lightning speed, creativity risks becoming even more commodified—something only those with access to the best tech, the best prompts, and the right platforms can leverage.

So, the better question is: What would it look like to make creativity a right again?

It starts with giving people the freedom to imagine—through time, access, education, and cultural permission to create badly before creating well. Because creativity isn't just for the gifted. Or the well-funded. Or the ones with shiny software.

It's for all of us. Or it should be.