Making Meaning: Creative Hobby v Calling v Profession

I’ve seen some discourse recently calling for creatives to stop talking about their creative passions and pursuits as a hobby; as though to associate creativity with hobby was to devalue it to a mere trifle. Instead these speakers ask us to refer to our creativity, our projects, our work as a calling, a divine and beautiful and worthy mission in our lives to devote time, effort, and energy to in order to take it seriously and validate all that you give to it. This is where the muck is. They’re not wrong. However, those sentiments don’t sit well with me personally. The people calling for creativity to be given a pedestal, validation, and intention are not wrong, but those conversations often put down the idea of having creativity be “just” a hobby, not a central focus of your life. I understand that society and probably many people in our personal circles don’t see the value in our creative time the same way they see spending hours at the driving range to work on your swing value as me time and improving oneself, even though it distracts, distracts, and demands resources from other areas of your life in the same way creative time does. Those people, the ones who relegate creativity to “just” nothing are not correct. There is nuance here, and I firmly believe there is a place for everyone to slot their creativity into whatever category feels right for them in their own life and circumstance. Hobby, calling, or profession. If you’re having a hard time placing value on your creativity and you need to make sense of how it fits into your life, I’m about to deep dive into how I think about creativity as a hobby, calling, and profession. 

The Enthusiasm of the Hobbyist

I love this phase. For years this was where I lived with my creativity, specifically with my writing. Hobby is doing something for the fun of it, the love of it, the learning of it. The only goal is to do and enjoy. It’s the thing that lights you up when you get to talk about it. It’s the thing that feels indulgent, like play. Creativity in many ways fits this beautifully free arena of hobby. To me, hobby feels safer than the other phases we’re about to walk through. It feels safe to leave it, to put it down and come back to it when we have time. There is very low pressure in this space. It’s a space where friends bond over the beginning. Where clubs form and come together to share workshop spaces or online forums where tips and tricks are exchanged with virve and opinions are vehemently defended while we remain open to new views. My writing for years was just a hobby. Something I did for me, for fun with my cousin at camp, something I always knew I would do, but never thought I’d actually share. Where hobby gets a bad wrap because people believe it means diminishing importance or keeping it in the realm of superfluous fun rather than taking it seriously I say hobby creativity is freeing and relaxing. This is the creativity that is self care; it recharges us. Hobby is so important in your creative journey because it gives you a place to start tinkering with the idea of a process, of building a practice that is sustainable, fits your life, and gives space for shame and guilt to eek its way out of the process through fun and flexibility. 

The Divinity of a Calling 

This is the moment of awe, a serene peace, an alignment of being. This is where I live in my creativity now. It’s not a space of pressure, but of purpose. A less savoury word would be a compulsion; to create, to share, to engage with my creativity and build a life around that now sacred practice, one that encompasses and enmeshes creativity within it instead of on the outskirts or in tryst like stolen moments. I have a message I want to share, stories I want to tell, things I want to express and share. It’s more than a playground or an interest, not that playgrounds or interests are less then. I need to create in order to make sense of my life, my world, myself. I think of a calling like a vocation. There is something ephemeral about a calling. It’s a desire to devote oneself to something, to an act, to a lifestyle. Often callings or vocations are in service to others, and I believe creativity has a huge capacity to serve our communities in interesting and important ways; connection forging, meaning making, relationship building. Where I feel hobby creativity is curiosity drive, calling or vocational creativity is purpose driven. It’s a fulfilling act, needful in its execution and willful in its desire to connect and be shared. Creativity changes from a fun experience to tinker with and takes on a weight, a sense of deeply personal responsibility. It becomes intertwined with who we are versus something that we do. Neither is more than the other; they are different and serve different purposes and places in our lives. 

The Actualization of the Professional 

For many creatives this is a made it moment. To make money, forge a living, be able to do creativity full time, or even part time, is a dream come true. However, it takes a certain work-iddy approach to creativity to make turning pro sustainable and enjoyable. Approaching creativity like a job or in a workman way does not devalue the process or suck the joy out of creativity. There is a delicate balance to be maintained in the professional creative world. Pressure to perform, to make money, to make deadlines can place undue shame, guilt, imposter syndrome and burnout on the creative spirit. By the same token, having creativity be your livelihood can also give you freedom, joy, and a deep appreciation for your audience, community, and craft. There is an understanding at this level that the appetite for creativity is insatiable. It is not that creatives are in competition with one another for audience or sales, but that proof of desire in the market stems from the pie getting bigger, not pieces being taken up by one creative or another. Asking for money for your creations, your time, your heart, does not devalue creativity in its essence. It is a beautiful thing to be paid for what you do! Creativity is so important to life, to enjoyment, to people’s lives and it deserves the same potential to earn and provide as tech contributions or farming efforts. I am not a professional creative, but I follow and support many. I hope one day to enter the ranks of professional creative, but it is a journey, one that I traverse slowly and with many pit stops along the way. 

Creativity is whatever we need it to be. It fits into our lives however it can and it meets us at our current capacity. Loving creativity however you can is beautiful. We expect society at large to misunderstand it and our relationship to it. However creativity takes up space in your life, celebrate it and don’t let anyone diminish its capacity to "just" anything.