Creativity is Essential

…Me, Elizabeth Gilbert, and some decorator crabs

Yi Shun Lai

Published in

Human Parts

3 min readJul 16, 2021

(Full alt text for this graphic essay is down below the illustrations.)

handwritten script with three watercolors of cartoon crabs. In the first, a crab sits on a sandy bottom with a sprig of something green in his claw. He is surrounded by a rock, a brittle star, a sponge, and some other green. The second crab sees a rock and some greens. The third has decorated himself with a rock, a sea anemone, and some green sprigs. Full text below images.

Alt text:

[image 1] I’ve been reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic. In it, she writes about her friend Eileen, who gets a tattoo whenever she feels like it. “My body is temporary,” Eileen says. “I decided I would decorate myself as playfully as I can, while I still have time.”

I love this idea. It made me think of one of my favorite animals, the decorator crab.

Why are they called decorator crabs? Well…

Decorator crabs take a look at their surroundings to see what’s around. Then…

THEY DECORATE THEMSELVES!!

With whatever’s around! Rocks! Plants! Sandy bits! Even other animals! Sea anemones! starfish!

[image 2] Script: Our crabs are just like Eileen, right? Except—Eileen is decorating for the sake of decorating, which…

Creativity is Essential

…Me, Elizabeth Gilbert, and some decorator crabs

Written by Yi Shun Lai