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For Love or Money

By Peter Lloyd

Creativity cannot be stopped. Creative people will pursue their dreams and do the work they love whether they get paid or not. You’ve heard a professional musician, athlete, inventor, or actor tell an interviewer that they would do what they do no matter what. That the money they make merely ices the cake. Sounds pretentious coming from the mouth of a pro who swims in millions but it’s true.

vintage ad promoting creativityThe path to professional success typically begins with work or play as an amateur. Dedication, training, commitment, and a bit of luck can eventually reward the amateur with recognition, income, and even fame. Most authors write their first works for no pay. Many write book after book with no financial reward until recognition arrives. Great musicians go through years of anonymity before they sign record contracts and climb the charts.

Then those who make it into the ranks of professionals find both satisfaction and distress there, because professionalism invariably introduces compromise. In order for an artist to succeed as a professional, a paying audience needs to be pleased. As a rule, the bigger the audience, the lower its standards, the more common its taste.

Inventors and designers find themselves trapped in a similar corner. The general public wants convenience, ease of use, and maximum utility but will pay for only minimum design excellence.

The amateur, the lover of the art or sport, can afford to create with uncompromising integrity. And now technology allows the amateur to reach an audience without clearing all the traditional publishing and publicizing hurdles that previously separated them from professionals. Increasingly you can find the most interesting work on the websites, Facebook and My Space pages, and blogs of amateurs.

We the amateurs’ audience may have to sort through more dreck to uncover the gems but the effort can be rewarding and worth the search. How about this Amateur?

Amateur work deserves more attention. I’m happy to audition unpolished musicians and authors, browse unsophisticated photographers and artists, view experimental videos. But then I’m a champion of the raw creative act. I remind myself that the wheel was invented by some sort of tinkerer, definitely an amateur. The same goes for all the arts and sports. They all evolved from amateur crafts and games. Science arose from all manner of quackery, including alchemy. Language was invented by illiterates, religion by atheists.

Professionalism serves us by separating the wheat from the chaff, but it can also discard more than chaff. It raises the bar but, in its ravenous need for profit, sells us inferior work as well. The rows the pros must hoe are rutted with favoritism and elitism that inhibit the free exchange of ideas and limit experimentation.

There are no gatekeepers on the way to the works of amateurs. That’s good for innovation. But there’s no one to keep out charlatans, cranks, and out-and-out frauds. Dabblers and dilettantes abound.



But we just have to get used to the creative chaos and learn how to deal with it. Because neither amateur nor professional creativity will never rest.

Peter Lloyd is co-creator with Stephen Grossman of Animal Crackers, the breakthrough problem-solving tool designed to crack your toughest problems.
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