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Comment by cortesoft | Hacker News Reader

Sadly, a lot of people's interests (or their interests combined with their lack of ability, connections, etc) don't put enough food on the table.

"Forget about the rest of the world" isn't helpful if someone has a family to support, or even themselves. It is pretty privileged to think everyone can choose to only work in a field of their choosing... I don't know if many janitors have an 'interest' in cleaning toilets... they have an interest in supporting themselves.

I have always appreciated Mike Rowe's views on work and this idea... it is ok to just work to make money, and find meaning in other parts of your life.

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> It is pretty privileged to think everyone can choose to only work in a field of their choosing

Have you ever read Bukowski before writing this? He worked odd jobs he loathed to support himself. He was fired often. He spent part of his life homeless.

You're right, but I meant that implicitly in my comment:

> it is ok to just work to make money, and find meaning in other parts of your life.

That you have to make that clear is a testament to how crazy work and more specifically developer culture is these days.

Why isn't it meaningful or fulfilling to do a "dirty job" that other people need done?

It seems like people just get stuck with the contradiction that if they are good people, they must care about others, but they don't like doing things for other people.

I've noticed that a lot of people in IT seem to gravitate towards a position in which they have power...to say "no". If you like saying "yes", you will go down a different road. And yes, I know the typical responses to that and why you shouldn't do that.

Well, isn't this exactly what the Author did? He worked blue-collar jobs for decades and "putting in the real work at the typewriter before each shift at the day job".

I think this is in address to creative types. It's ok to be a creative and have a day-job.

I'll say this, though. I hate development less than I would one of Rowe's jobs.

This is why we should have Basic Income!

Then you just have to decide what your primary goal is:

Is it to create a piece of (truly) original artistic expression?

Or is it to... put food on the table?

Both are perfectly valid. But -- as you are correct in noting -- quite different.

Everybody's primary goal is to put food on the table! You must be pretty insulated from the hard realities of life if you think people can simply treat survival as optional.

Everybody's primary goal is to put food on the table!

I meant your goal in choosing to do creative work, obviously.

Not in a hierarchy-of-needs sense.

But I was speaking in a hierarchy-of-needs sense. Not everyone gets to the point where you can choose to do creative work.

I recommend reading some biographies of famous creative people. You’ll quickly learn that a sizable portion of them lived in poverty, took on enormous debts, or died young.

Are you suggesting that is correct choice to make?

Obviously one should try to avoid poverty, debts and early death. But if you are truly dedicated to your creative field, then sure, it's clearly the correct choice. Having a family, buying a house and other middle-class living standards are choices, not necessities. If someone isn't willing to make some sacrifices for their art, perhaps they aren't meant to be great at it in the first place.

Otherwise, when will you pursue your art? In the next life?

Putting food on the table for yourself is pretty damn easy. But if you want a house, kids, a wife, a nice car, etc, then it gets exponentially more difficult.

So, there is a choice available for creative people who don't wish to compromise: They can be fully into their work at the expense of the above cultural norms - perhaps if they are very successful in their niche they can have those things too, but there could be a very long or infinite period of their lives where this is not possible - that's the sacrifice.

I'm so sick of the 'I can't do XYZ because I have kids and a mortgage' talk - well maybe you should have thought about the long term ramifications of kids and a mortgage?

Okay, I agree with you. I guess "put food on the table" has a connotation of providing specifically for others and not just yourself, which I wasn't considering.

As my father phrased it when I moved out at 18, "Make sure you have food on the table and a roof over your head, the rest is just details."

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