Guest Post: Useless

Hello. I am Mr Stonebender. I’m writing a post for Samantha so she can go play in the woods for a while.

Consider these: 

Now consider this:

This shot got kicked around the internet a few weeks ago, listing every major interest I’ve had in my life including two I’m working on making my profession, chances willing. They’re all difficult fields to enter into professionally, often requiring persistent effort, discipline and demonstrable skill to even get started. (Although I suspect architecture is on there due to economically systemic downturns in real-estate sales and all that recessiony bullshit. Not because it’s generally a “bad idea”.) 

Yeah. I realize this could become a debate about whether you go to University at all, but let’s just table that one for now, k? Let’s make this a discussion about this feeling that studies and disciplines that lack a, let’s call it an arithmetic trajectory are the domain of dreamers, airheads, and trust-fund kids; because those aren’t real jobs that grownups do. Grownups get jobs in their field straight out of college. Grownups do work. 

And I’ve gotten that look, that down-pitched “ah” and a hint of piteous condescension whenever I tell people that I have cancer, when what I really told them is what I studied in school. Generally, after a beat, what comes next is “So what are you going to…” pause “…do with that?” 

Online job postings are packed with the financial side of this phenomenon, too. Companies looking for a Graphic Designer they hope to staff at ten bucks an hour without benefits; or a website/UI design ticket with a budget of $250; or, worst of all, similar freelance jobs being offered as “portfolio experience” for anyone from photographers to musicians/songwriters to film professionals. That tells me two things. One: the idea that creative work is something that can be pursued only for the emotional benefits, never the professional, extends beyond the concerned family member into the fabric of creative work-for-hire. And Two: People are actually taking these jobs. 

Listen: the notion of art and design as a profession is somewhat newer to our culture than, say, farming, and it’s this attitude of minimization and apology that contributes to the undervaluation of the skills listed on that NBC screen-cap. Because through that behavior, through accepting minimum-wage work, we seem to say “you’re right. It’s kind of a scam. I should just do it for free.” But we shouldn’t. Because art, design, drama, and engineering require skill, time, energy, and work; and just like farming they produce something we need. Although these purposes are intangible at times, they’re no less real in their contribution to the social fabric and overall quality of life many of us enjoy. 

Architects build the world; designers make it accessible, make it function; and artists evaluate it, interpret it, and pour it back out as beauty, tragedy, comedy; Photographers, Cinematographers, and writers are technicians whose talent lies in taking those ideas that everyone else on the list spends a lifetime considering, and translating them effectively to those of us that have not.

Without these Useless Majors, we are depressed monkeys living in caves, never knowing who we are.