Give yourself permission to be creative | Ethan Hawke (re-release)

Summary

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TED Talks Daily: "Give yourself permission to be creative"

Speaker: Ethan Hawke
Release Date: October 25, 2025 (original 2020)
Host: Elise Hu

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Episode Overview

This episode features actor, writer, and director Ethan Hawke’s TED Talk on the importance of creativity. Hawke explores why giving ourselves permission to be creative is not just desirable, but essential to connection, growth, and self-knowledge. With stories from his own life, he encourages listeners to express themselves, embrace their passions, and recognize that creativity has value beyond conventional standards of success.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Creativity Requires Permission

• Ethan Hawke addresses the common internal struggle of whether we have the right to be creative or fear not being "good enough."
  • "A lot of people really struggle to give themselves permission to be creative and reasonably so. I mean, we're all a little suspect of our own talent." [03:04]

2. The Fool as the Poet

• Hawke recounts a story of Allen Ginsberg's appearance on “Firing Line,” singing a Hare Krishna song, and being ridiculed for it.
  • Ginsberg responded: “That’s my job, you know. I’m a poet and I’m going to play the fool.” [03:33]
• Hawke finds this liberating:
  • “That’s really the enemy, because it’s not up to us whether what we do is any good... the world is an extremely unreliable critic.” [04:20]

3. Why Human Creativity Matters

• Art and creativity become essential in moments of deep emotion—grief, heartbreak, love.
  • “Most people don’t spend a lot of time thinking about poetry… until their father dies, or you lose a child, somebody breaks your heart… and all of a sudden you’re desperate for making sense out of this life.” [04:45]
• Creativity is not a luxury, but a “sustenance.”
  • “Has anybody ever felt this bad before? … How did they come out of this cloud?” [05:09]

4. Creativity as Nature Manifest in Us

• Hawke draws parallels between natural beauty and human creative expression (the aurora borealis, the Grand Canyon, and children at play).
  • “Human creativity is nature manifest in us.” [05:30]

5. Self-Knowledge, Passion, and Connection

• Connection comes from expressing what you love and learning about yourself.
  • “If you get close to what you love, who you are is revealed to you, and it expands.” [06:09]
• Hawke’s personal journey began at age 12 acting in “St. Joan.” His profession repeatedly “gives back” through diverse experiences.
  • “I have so much in common with all these people… and so they have something in common with me.” [07:01]

6. Creativity in Ordinary Lives

• Hawke describes his great-grandmother’s pride in making costumes for a play—a brief creative act overshadowed her decades of work.
  • “My great grandmother...spent about five pages on the one time she did costumes for a play...50 years of cotton farming, you know, gets a mention. Five pages on doing these costumes.” [07:26]

7. Passion Can Take Many Forms

• Moving story of Hawke’s stepbrother, inspired by “Top Gun” to join the military, whose creativity expressed itself through leadership and service.
  • “His creativity was leadership…his bravery to help others. That was something he felt called to do and it gave back to him.” [08:38]

8. Children, Habit, and Creative Courage

• Children’s creativity comes from lack of self-consciousness and habit—they simply throw themselves at tasks.
  • “They’re not building a sandcastle going, ‘I think I’m going to be a really good sandcastle builder.’ They just throw themselves at whatever project you put in front of them.” [09:38]

9. Creativity Heals and Connects

• Creativity is not just pleasant or nice—it’s vital:
  • “It’s the way we heal each other… in singing our song, in telling our story, in inviting you to say, ‘Hey, listen to me and I'll listen to you.’” [10:11]
• When we express ourselves and invite dialogue, we witness our common humanity and healing can happen.

10. Practical Advice: Play the Fool & Follow Your Love

• The “path” of creativity is made by walking, not by following prescribed steps.
  • “There is no path. There’s no path ‘til you walk it. And you have to be willing to play the fool.” [10:50]
• Read what you want. Listen to new music. Talk to people outside your circle, even if it feels foolish.
  • “If you do that you will feel foolish. That’s the point. Play the fool.” [11:11]

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Memorable Quotes

• On seeking validation:
  "That's really the enemy, because it's not up to us whether what we do is any good. And if history's taught us anything, the world is an extremely unreliable critic."
  — Ethan Hawke [04:18]

• On the necessity of art:
  "That's when art's not a luxury. It's actually sustenance. We need it."
  — Ethan Hawke [05:11]

• On self-discovery:
  "And if you get close to what you love, who you are is revealed to you, and it expands."
  — Ethan Hawke [06:17]

• On creativity’s purpose:
  "It's the way we heal each other. ... We're starting a dialogue, you know, and when you do that, this healing happens and we come out of our corners and we start to witness each other's common humanity."
  — Ethan Hawke [10:16]

• On courage and the role of the fool:
  "There is no path till you walk it. And you have to be willing to play the fool."
  — Ethan Hawke [10:51]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 03:01 – Opening reflection: creativity and its challenges
• 03:33 – Ginsberg and “playing the fool”
• 04:45 – When creativity becomes sustenance
• 06:09 – Personal story: discovering self through acting
• 07:26 – Great-grandmother’s creative pride
• 08:38 – Stepbrother’s passion and military creativity
• 09:38 – Children and habits of creativity
• 10:11 – Creative expression as healing
• 10:50 – Practical advice: Play the fool and follow your love

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Tone and Style

The talk is intimate, thoughtful, and encouraging. Hawke uses personal stories, gentle humor, and straightforward wisdom to empower listeners to embrace their own creativity, not for recognition, but for connection and healing—themselves and others.

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Summary for Non-Listeners

Ethan Hawke’s TED Talk is a powerful meditation on the courage to be creative. He urges listeners to give themselves permission to act on what they love, regardless of external judgment, sharing stories that highlight how creativity brings meaning, connection, and healing. Hawke’s message: don’t be afraid to play the fool—your creativity is a gift, vital to yourself and the world.

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Transcript

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[Ethan Hawke]

I was hoping today to talk a little bit about creativity. You know, a lot of people really struggle to give themselves permission to be creative and reasonably so. I mean, we're all a little suspect of our own talent. And I remember a story I came across in my early 20s that kind of meant a lot to me. I was really into Allen Ginsberg and I was reading his poetry and I was reading, he did a lot of interviews. And one time William F. Buckley had this television program called Firing Line and Ginsberg went on there and sang a Hare Krishna song while playing the harmonium, you know, and he got back to New York to all his intelligentsia friends and they all told him that, you know, that everybody thinks you're an idiot, the whole country is making fun of you. And he said, that's my job, you know, I'm a poet and I'm going to play the fool. Most people have to go to work all day long and they come home and they fight with their spouse and they eat and they like turn on the old boob tube and somebody tries to sell them something. And I just screwed all that up. I went on and I sang about Krishna and now they're sitting in bed and going, who's this stupid poet? And they can't fall asleep, right? And that's his job as a poet. And so I find that very liberating because I think that most of us really want to offer the world something of quality, something that the world will consider good or important. And that's really the enemy because it's not up to us whether what we do is any good. And if history's taught us anything, the world is an extremely unreliable critic. So you have to ask yourself, do you think human creativity matters? Well, most people don't spend a lot of time thinking about poetry, right? They have a life to live. And they're not really that concerned with Allen Ginsberg's poems or anybody's poems until their father dies, they go to a funeral, you lose a child, somebody breaks your heart, they don't love you anymore. And all of a sudden you're desperate for making sense out of this life. And has anybody ever felt this bad before? How did they come out of this cloud or the inverse? Something great. You meet somebody and your heart explodes. You love them so much you can't even see straight. You know, you're Dizzy. Did anybody feel like this before? What is happening to me? And that's when art's not a luxury. It's actually sustenance. We need it. Okay, well, what is it? Human creativity is nature manifest in us. We look at the. Oh, the aurora borealis, right? I did this movie called White Fang when I was a kid. And we shot up in Alaska. And you go out at night, and the sky was, like, rippling with purple and pink and white. And it's the most beautiful thing I ever saw. It really looked like the sky was playing. Beautiful. You go to Grand Canyon at sundown. It's beautiful. We know that's beautiful. But fall in love. Your lover is pretty beautiful. I have four kids. Watching them play, watching them, like, pretend to be a butterfly or run around the house or doing anything. It's so beautiful. And I believe that we are here on this star in space. To try to help one another, right? And first we have to survive, and then we have to thrive. And to thrive, to express ourselves. All right, well, here's the rub. We have to know ourselves. What do you love? And if you get close to what you love. Who you are is revealed to you, and it expands. For me, it was really easy. I did my first professional play. I was 12 years old. I was in a play called St. Joan by George Bernard Shaw at the McCarter Theater. And boom, I was in love. My world just expanded. And that profession. I'm almost 50 now. That profession has never stopped giving back to me. And it gives back more and more strangely through the characters that I've played. I've played cops, I've played criminals. I've played priests. I've played sinners. And the magic of this, over a lifetime, over 30 years of doing this. Is that you start to see that my experiences, me, Ethan, is not nearly as unique as I thought. I have so much in common with all these people. And so they have something in common with me. You start to see how connected we all are. My grandmother. My great grandmother, Della Hall, Walker Green. On her deathbed, she wrote this little biography in the hospital. And it was only about 36 pages long. And she spent about five pages on the one time she did costumes for a play. Her first husband got, like, a paragraph right. Cotton farming, of which she did for 50 years. You know, gets a mention. Five pages on doing these costumes. And I look, my mom gave me one of her quilts that she made. And you can feel it. She was expressing herself. And it has a power that's real. I remember My stepbrother and I went to go see Top Gun, whatever year that came out. And I remember we walked out of the mall, it was like blazing hot. I just looked at him and we both felt that movie just like a calling from God, you know, this film, but completely differently. Like I wanted to be an actor. I was like, I, I got to make something that makes people feel. I just wanted to be a part of that. And he wanted to be in the military. You know, that's what all we ever did is play FBI, play army man, play knights, you know, and I'd like pose with my sword. And he would build a working crossbow that you could shoot an arrow into a tree. Right. So he joins the army. Well, he just retired colonel in the Green Berets. He's a multi decorated combat veteran of Afghanistan. In Iraq, he now teaches a sail camp for children of fallen soldiers. He gave his life to his passion. His creativity was leadership, leading others, his bravery to help others. That was something he felt called to do and it gave back to him. We know this. The time of our life is so short and how we spend it, are we spending it doing what's important to us? Most of us not. I mean, it's hard. The pull of habit is so huge. And that's what makes kids so beautifully creative, is that they don't have any habits and they don't care if they're any good or not.

[TED Talks Daily Narrator]

Right?

[Ethan Hawke]

They're not, you know, they're not building a sandcastle, going, I think I'm going to be a really good sandcastle builder. You know, they just, they throw themselves at whatever project you put in front of them. Dancing, doing a painting, you know, building something, any opportunity they have, they try to use it to impress upon you their individuality. Right. It's so beautiful. There's a thing that worries me sometimes whenever you talk about creativity because it can have this kind of feel that it's just nice, you know, or it's warm or it's something pleasant. It's not, it's vital. It's the way we heal each other. In singing our song, in telling our story, in inviting you to say, hey, listen to me and I'll listen to you. We're starting a dialogue, you know, and when you do that, this healing happens and we come out of our corners and we start to witness each other's common humanity, we start to assert it. And when we do that, really good things happen. So if you want to help your community, if you want to help your family, if you want to help your friends. You have to express yourself. And to express yourself, you have to know yourself. It's actually super easy. You just have to follow your love, right? There is no path. There's no path till you walk it. And you have to be willing to play the fool. So don't, you know, read the book that you should read. Read the book you want to read. Don't listen to the music that you used to like. You know, take some time to listen to some new music. Take some time to talk to somebody that you don't normally talk to. I guarantee if you do that you will feel foolish. That's the point. Play the fool.

[Podcast Host Elise Hu]

That was Ethan hawke speaking at TED 2020. This talk was originally posted in July 2020. If you're curious about TED's curation, find out [e-mail] curationguidelines and that's it for today. TED Talks Daily is part of the TED Audio Collective. This talk was fact checked by the TED Research team and produced, produced and edited by our team, Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Brian Greene, Lucy Little and Tansika Songmanivong. This episode was mixed by Lucy Little. Additional support from Emma Tobner and Daniela Ballarazo. I'm Elise Hu. I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your feed. Thanks for listening.

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