|
If someone told me at a party that they were an author, an artist or a musician, all I know is that they write books, create art or make music. It doesn't imply that they write good books, create good art or create music, or that their creations would be to my liking.
We have no basic for limiting the definition of author, artist or musician to someone who is able to make a living at it, because that sort of reasoning leads to absurdities. If writing good books is a prerequisite to being an author, it follows that there is no such thing as a bad author. It implies that the starving artist meme is invalid - there could not exist such a thing as a starving artist, instead, we would have a non-artist. A person playing guitar for tips in the subway station is in fact a musician.
|