Hugh’s realities about getting to do something “creative” for a living:

1. It’s a great privilege. So there’s a lot of other folk chasing after the same prize, and the barriers to entry are high.

2. “Creativity” is extremely time consuming. My cartoons didn’t get any good [to me, at least] until I had spent well over a decade working obsessively on them. Hell, I’m still not there yet.

3. When you get into the “creative” zone, the lines between “work time” and “off time” start getting blurry. And the deeper you get into that zone, the blurrier the lines get. I often work from seven in the morning till midnight and think nothing of it.

4. The thing that turns a job into passion, that turns work into play, is a sense of mission. When you’ve got a real sense of purpose, the lines that separate work and play evaporate. So instead of thinking about how “creative” or “uncreative” your job is, ask yourself what “purpose-idea” your job is articulating.

5. A “purpose-idea” just doesn’t land on your lap because you’re lucky, smart and good-looking. A sense of purpose only comes your way usually because you’ve been working your ass off over a long period of time, intensely cultivating it. And yeah, sometimes that will appear to more mainstream people as “Having no life”. To hell with them. They don’t know or care about you. Successful people get to where they are by doing the stuff that unsuccessful people aren’t willing to do. Harsh but true.