On purpose

[-JKP-]

...

Yes, but novelists exist and clothes designers exist and painters exist and musicians exist who do what they do for the sheer pleasure of it. So why not our manuscript writers. What you have said surely just reinforces my point.

Well, being a musician, I know this. But what I've been trying to say for several posts is that intellectual curiosity and craft are not the same.

Reading books (intellectual curiosity) is not the same as writing books. Listening to music is not the same as LEARNING how to play a sonata, playing scales and practicing for three hours a day (look up what Jonathan Bell says about practice. He does not like it, but he loves his instrument, he loves the final result).

Going to a museum to see a sculpture is not the same as planning, casting and scraping and burnishing and polishing. There is WORK involved in getting to the finish line or to the part that is pleasurable. In other words, there is, in a sense, a cost-benefit balance in what is pleasurable. How much pain and repetition and annoyance is a person willing to endure to get to the part that is pleasurable? This varies greatly from person-to-person and considering that most of the world consists of viewers rather than doers, consumers rather than creators, I would say that most people don't feel it's worth the trouble. Intellectual curiosity is more common than learning the skills to tackle a big project.