People who don’t write or compose may not know just how painstaking the work can be and usually is. While it is true that some songs flow so naturally and are completed in as little as 15 minutes, it is often only so after decades of practice and hundreds of failed precursors.

The computer has brought about an era of nearly instantaneous production. It has also brought about a plethora of low quality “creative” work. But mere expression is not creative — the worth of the ideas expressed and the way in which they are expressed do. This takes a long time to cultivate.

Young people who wish to become artists — you may not call yourself an artist unless you have earned it and when you have attained it, you will not call yourself or insist upon being called an artist for the pain of remembering your own conceit that you once did — should understand that it is a very long road. But once you reach it — if you do — the inestimable value of having reached it makes the attainment worth all the pains.