A Recommendation of Amateurism

 We were told growing up to "pursue your dreams," and "do what you love," followed inevitably by the punchline: "and you'll never work a day in your life." This advice is about as damaging as insisting everyone pursue college education without regard for desire or ability. It's one of many stock platitudes that I call "boomerisms," built largely on American myths of success and self-determination. 

Of course, none of this has been true for a long time. Take the story of the Tucker automobile as a microcosm: one man with a dream turns it into a business only to have a collusion of government, industry, and media disassemble it before it ever turns a profit. There's a movie about it.

But what if Tucker had satisfied himself with building cars in his garage, one at a time? People do this now to great personal satisfaction. Government typically leaves them alone; rival businesses don't even notice; but your neighborhood will notice. Guys who learn a craft and practice it locally become small town heroes, be it woodworking, hot-rodding, or beer brewing.

I was a gear head growing up. I was always working on an engine, or replacing rusted body panels. I began restoring my first car, at 16. I completed it four years later at 20, after replacing about 1/3  of the sheet metal and refurbishing the interior. It had a bad-ass set of Buick rally wheels I salvaged from a junkyard, a white paint job and black vinyl roof. I got offers to buy it whenever I took it for a drive. The car was frustrating, but satisfying. I loved car restoration. I was an "amateur." An "amator," in Latin: a "lover." An amateur is someone who is motivated by a love for his craft. No other incentive is necessary. The Boomer would suggest that you turn this love into a business, but in my experience, this is the fastest way to drain the love out of a thing and turn it into a drudgery or a slavery. 

I landed a job at a local restoration shop. I worked very hard in very bad conditions to make it in that industry. I put up with abuse and manipulation. I worked many hours pro bono because the shop was new and short on funds. Then I was practically fired. I was threatened with termination because I did not work at the desired pace. To make amends I began to rush my work, only to hear the opposite complaint that quality was lacking. Then I was blamed for equipment failures and other damages and forced to pay reparations from my own pocket. They wanted me gone, so I left.

I was disillusioned early in life concerning the idea of making one's passion a career. Even if you can makes ends meet, the passion will often fade. That restoration shop was founded by a man who was sick of doing collision work for a living. He wanted to do high end resto-work. What he didn't see was that the antique car market was in a bubble driven by a mass of boomers retiring and cashing in their stocks to live like kings for the remainder of their years. Now the market is saturated with restored cars and the work has dried up. My old boss borrowed a million dollars to restore professionally, full time. Last I heard he was doing collision work to pay the bills and sold his own project car for lack of time. The lesson: restoring cars should have remained his hobby. He would have been happier. 

I brew beer as a hobby, like many other men. Over the past decade or so many home brewers have made the jump to micro-brewing, investing 100's of thousands in equipment, signing expensive leases in commercial districts, and navigating the jungle of government oversight and licensing. They make good beer - most of the time. It's a lot harder to brew on a large scale. The yeast becomes unpredictable and the massive equipment can harbor the smallest microbes which will bloom in your new batch. Home brewers make small, inexpensive mistakes. Commercial brewers make four, five, or even six digit mistakes. It doesn't take too many of those to founder a business. After a few years, they're no longer doing it for the love of the craft.

Compare this to a local wood sculptor a few miles from my house. He sculpts life-size animals from large pieces of tree trunk using a chainsaw. His early work was not terrific, but it was functional art made locally. He sells every piece he makes, and year by year his work has improved until now a bear sculpture on the side of the road will give you pause as to whether you are beholding the real thing. He will likely never do this for his bread and butter, but he would probably cease loving his hobby if he tried to make it a proper business. He is the definition of an amateur. 

Amateurism just sounds bad. It tends to equate to substandard work cobbled together by dilettantes. But this is not the case. The word simply refers to one who practices a craft for love rather than profit. Amateur work is often better than profit motivated work, for obvious reasons. What we do for profit should meet two qualifications: 1. It should be lucrative enough that you have time and money left over to pursue your passions; 2. The work should be tolerable enough that you can do it every day without harm to your physical or mental health. And while even this short list is a difficult ideal to achieve, it is far better than attempting to role the Boomer's rock of Sisyphus by making a career from your favorite hobby.  

What we also seem to have lost is a sense of appreciation for the "local." We don't consider a band a success until they've signed a national label. Why? Some of my favorite music is local and regional, from bands who do their own recordings and would never sign a deal. And how have artists generally fared once they're in the big leagues? How many singers and musicians met an early demise? Perhaps they would all be alive and far happier playing local gigs. 

Chesterton once wrote that the world may become large, if you are willing to become small within it. Amateurism is a dirty word, but it shouldn't be. It goes hand in hand with humility, and humility is often partnered with happiness. The root of amateur is the Latin amor, meaning love. It is important to maintain this passion, but such love is not compatible with the pursuit of money. Contra the boomers of my formative years, happiness requires a hard line of demarcation between love and money, because no man can serve two masters. 

-CP