When people work 50 hours a week, does that mean they're wasting any artistic talents they may possess?

Question

For instance:

The actress waiting tables

The artist driving a cab

The singer tending bar

etc.

Answer 1

I think it is a question of balancing the two.

Answer 2

No. Most of those businesses are really hard to get into and they're just doing what they can to get by.

Answer 3

John Lennon said something like:  Life is what is happening while we're busy making other plans (I'd have to listen and refresh my memory on those words).  I think that the truly artistic find the time to fit their passions in.

Answer 4

I definitely think so but sadly we all can't get our creative talents out due to the need to survive in this world.  You should check out the tenacious D song "cosmic shame".  It is really funny and talks about this kind of thing.

Answer 5

If they had any real artistic talent they wouldn't be working 50 hours a week bartending, table waiting, or cab driving.  Not trying to be cynical or mean -- I just believe that a real artist will find a way, and not by working 50 hours a week at a stop-gap dead end job.  Art is not only a skill or talent, a real artist has the drive to create art.  Many of the historic artistic greats were dirt poor, some were lucky enough to gain financial indepdence through their art, some not.  Mozart was buried in a pauper's grave.  

I have no real artistic talent, so I work at a steady paying job.  When I retire, then I can give my video or graphics or oil painting skills a go.  Or paint by the numbers, ha ha, somewhere is some retirement community in Florida.

Answer 6

I work 49 hours a week, and it certainly isn't a waste! I work a 40-hour week at my day job, and then I play three days a week, three hours at a time, at the regular restaurant gig I've had for ten years. I play Irish harp, and although I won't ever be playing to huge stadium crowds, that isn't at all why I do what I do.

There isn't any glamour in starving. Here in Austin, Texas, we have a saying: "Real musicians have day jobs." I decided early on in my career that I'd rather have two incomes than just one. Music will never be my full-time occupation, and I don't want it to be--because then it is just my job.