Meaning-Making as Economic Activity
Creative surplus isn’t something you build toward or earn through years of grinding in a job you dislike. It’s the baseline condition of being a thinking, feeling, sense-making creature. The only question is whether you’re curious enough about yourself to recognize it and articulate it into the world.
Most economic thinking about creative work starts from the wrong place. It assumes you have to accumulate something first — time, resources, credentials, permission — before you have anything to offer. You wait until you’re ready. You save up. You eventually have something to give. This framework is broken, and it’s why so many people end up hating their jobs. They’re operating from a permanent condition of not-enough, waiting for a future state that never arrives.