I think the parent had this key part - "risk - whether it be to limb, financial, social, mental, or whatever else". Going by your example of art, it carries some of the other types of risks - mental (not being appreciated), financial (not making enough for a decent life), societal (getting too engulfed and being lonely). I'm not saying the parent was well backed by data and statistics, I just think there's some truth to it - interesting things are frequently interesting, because you can also fail at them. If you can't fail, the reward is much smaller / non-existent.