Creativity is an in-built impetus in man, far more important than, say, what science calls the satisfaction of basic needs. In those terms, creativity is the most basic need of all. I am not speaking here of any obsessive need to find order — in which case, for example, a person might narrow his or her mental and physical environment — but of a powerful drive within the species for creativity, and for the fulfillment of values that are emotional and spiritual. And if man does not find these (louder), then the so-called basic drives toward food or shelter will not sustain him.
I am not simply saying that man does not live for bread alone. I am saying that if man does not find meaning in life he will not live, bread or no. He will not have the energy to seek bread, nor trust his impulse to do so.
--- NoME #863