Imagine a Venn diagram. The first circle (A) is a set of important work that has to be done. The second circle (B) is a set of lucrative and profitable work. The two circles combine to create an intersecting circle (C), which are important work that are also lucrative and profitable.
We are usually advised to choose as our career the sweetspot that combines A and B. This is taught even in cultural frameworks like the ikigai. But what these frameworks are missing is that there are creative kinds of work that are important and have to be done but are not lucrative or even slightly profitable because there is no market for them or the market is not enough. Their value just does not exist but it doesn’t mean that their value will not come in the future or that they have 0 value. As long as the maker sees them as valuable, they have to be done.
See for example, Van Gogh who valued his work despite no one believing in him. He pursued his work even if it wasn’t lucrative, ushering a new era of art decades after his death. If he didn’t respond to the call of the gift economy, there will be no such art form today.
The business mindset that lies in the exchange economy will say that if an action or activity does not have an audience to it or does not pay, it has to be abandoned automatically. What I propose is that we don’t hasten abandoning projects that came to us as a gift from the universe just because there is no market for them. If our soul is shouting and crying for us to do the thing, we have to do it no matter what.
Not all work must require monetary payment before it happens. If this is the case, there are lots of important work that won’t be finished. An example is saving a dying lannguage like Pangasinan. There is no money in this endeavor, but it has to be done.
We need to intentionally create a space for two or three things that we do without pay.
The most difficult thing about being an artist is constantly convincing others that what you are doing is important despite being unprofitable.