Whats the ROI of Creativity?

Was reading Hugh MacLeod's posts today on the tribulations of the creative soul and the lack of "a life" (reverse-hat tip to Stowe Boyd). Precis (to stay with Fair Usage guidelines follows:

1. It's a great privilege. So there's a lot of other folk chasing after the same prize, and the barriers to entry are high.

2. "Creativity" is extremely time consuming. My cartoons didn't get any good [to me, at least] until I had spent well over a decade working obsessively on them. Hell, I'm still not there yet.

3. When you get into the "creative" zone, the lines between "work time" and "off time" start getting blurry. And the deeper you get into that zone, the blurrier the lines get.

4. The thing that turns a job into passion, that turns work into play, is a sense of mission.

5. A "purpose-idea" just doesn't land on your lap because you're lucky, smart and good-looking. A sense of purpose only comes your way usually because you've been working your ass off over a long period of time, intensely cultivating it.

Actually the barrier to entry is very low, but there is bugger all money in most "creative" stuff except for the very few at the top - so the real "barrier to entry" for most people is best described in Hugh's concept of the Sex/Money game:

The creative person basically has two kinds of jobs: One is the sexy, creative kind. Second is the kind that pays the bills. Sometimes the assignment covers both bases, but not often.

The trick, of course, is to do what you love and make it pay - ie your work is your passion. Trouble is that this is very hard to do in large enterprise structures, so you either moonlight or go out on your own. That, I suspect, is why so many people start their own businesses, despite the problems of the Founders Discount.

Unforunately, the cash payback - the Return on Investment can be a long time coming - as the many posthumously appreciated artists can testify, so it comes down to the old question "what d'you want to do with your life".

Still, to misquote someone who followed his passion - 'tis better to have lived (your dream) and lost, than to never have lived at all

Of course, first you have to get cured of your Affluenza