Thought experiments can lead wherever you want them to. You can just as well think of happiness as a skill that one can hone and learn to practice in increasin

Thought experiments can lead wherever you want them to. You can just as well think of happiness as a skill that one can hone and learn to practice in increasingly varied circumstances. Voila, it’s no longer part of some calculus of motivation at all. It’s just its own thing that one may or may not partake in. And likewise, you can just as well think of creating as a casually chosen option among countless ways to spend time. You do it if you want to do it, when you want to do it, because you may as well do something. Voila, it’s no longer reliant on the state of things around you or you’re mood. It’s just its own thing that one may or may not partake in. You can play the little thought experiment parlor trick to get you wherever you want to go. If you want to believe that artists only do what they do to escape suffering, that’s fine, but some of us opt for different thought experiments with different conclusions. In this case, it turns out that if you want to believe it, one can be happy and make stuff with no contradiction at all. Many of us here know that from first hand experience.