Needs and wants

Bottle tree, Hillsborough, NC

A story I heard today, which I may be telling badly:

A noted artist came to speak with a class of art students. When she arrived, the instructor asked the students to go around the room and tell her two things off the top of their heads.

What they need as artists.

What they want as artists.

But before they got started, one of the students asked the artist what her response to the question was.

A moment passed, and then the artist said, "I'm disturbed."

The room fell silent.

"I'm disturbed to hear that students who are so young and at the beginning of their lives are already being instructed to divide up the things they need from the things they want. If you want to live your lives fully as artists - what you want should be indistinguishable from what compels you - you can't separate them."