Profession (1957)

The cool thing about art, in any form, is that it can speak to different people in different ways. When asked "what does it mean?" an artist often replies "what does it mean to you?". Ultimately you may love, or hate, the art, but at least you feel something.

So maybe it's elitist to see a world where only a minority create. If so let me accept that badge with honor.

As you say, all children create. Somewhere, somehow, most of them lose that burning urge. Perhaps it is the convenience of modern life. Perhaps it is in the willingness to fail. Perhaps because they are prepared to risk more.

Yes, perhaps our education, wherever you are in the world, plays a part. It prepares us for a future, and we eagerly milk it for the future we see for ourselves. And clearly even more than education our parents, society and culture, and gently or firmly pushing in the direction of a stable quiet life with a "real job".

The musician, poet, painter knows that you can't make a living doing those things - by and large creators are not well paid.

So a day job there is, but the creator creates. He writes at night, he plays in a band on weekends, he paints the sunset from an exotic holiday shore.

Today tech allows for even more - and blessed are those that find a way to make creating pay and through the work can keep their creation joy. There are more aspiring film makers on YouTube, more aspiring rock stars on Spotify, more aspiring Writers on any blog platform.

The audience is closer, yes, the route to full-time is more achievable than ever. But for every megastar there are 100 dad-bands, with 5 followers, creating music because that is its own reward.

In our society today its not that the elite are the only ones "allowed" to create. Creation has never been so accessible, our lives never before so overflowing with free time.

If I am elitist for creating, then I wear the badge with pride. I encourage others to join me. Creation is open to anyone who cooks a meal, types on a phone, can wield an instrument, who can grasp a pen.

And yet so few do. So few are prepared to fail, to risk inconvenience, to expose themselves to public ridicule. It just isn't them. (and that is perfectly OK.) Creators are easy to spot though, it's in everything they do. They create. You can't make them stop.

You don't have to be a chef to be a creator. Creators create rubbish, only through constant failure do sparks of greatness arrive.

A creator can be anyone, greatness comes from anywhere.

To a home cook it starts by wondering what will happen if I add this, or change that. What if the recipe can be ignored. What if I add wine, or take away the tomato. Every time I'm prepared to make it worse, I allow it to be better.

The great musicians throw away 10 songs for every one they keep. We see their success, but perhaps in seeing their failure we would be better encouraged.

Being a creator has nothing to do with your circumstance. Opportunities to create are all around us in every mundane thing we do.

Incidentally I am not saying creators are better than anyone else. I'm not saying that they are somehow more-worthy. Yes they are rare, but rare doesn't mean special.

I'm not sure we are all born to create, that every child is a natural creator, but if we are all latent creators then all I can do is encourage everyone to try.

Perhaps though we are not all born to create. Maybe the willingness to be mocked, to fail, to suffer, to lose, is in but a few. Perhaps those few create because they have to, in spite of the obstacles.

In Profession George asks why. Why not tell everyone this is a possibility. Why not make creating an honorable job?

“And those who don’t? The ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine that don’t? We can’t have all those people considering themselves failures. They aim at the professions and one way or another they all make it. Everyone can place after his or her name: Registered something-or-other. In one fashion or another every individual has his or her place in society and this is necessary.”

" It won’t do to say to a man, ‘You can create. Do so.’ It is much safer to wait for a man to say, ‘I can create, and I will do so whether you wish it or not."

Elitism doesn't mean thinking for yourself or being a creator or doing something better than anyone else. Elitism is the idea that only members of an elite (e.g., people of the right class or those who went to the right schools) can or should do those things.