An amateur is one who loves
A proposition: what if amateur could outrank professional in terms of our respect? We tend to use amateur pejoratively, to indicate the lack of skill, but the word in French means lover. If you think about it this way:
Amateur: one who loves
Professional: one who is financially obligated
Which one has the lack? I think it’s worth considering our knee-jerk moral judgements on the term. It’s perilously close to my fanfiction soapbox, but I can think of so many instances where love of, for intrinsic reward is just as if not more commendable than obligation to, for extrinsic reward.
Then we could introduce the term vocateur, for those whose amateur pursuits become expertise.
anecdote 1/11/25: I was thinking about this today during the British cyclocross national championships. Most of the nationals in various countries weren’t filmed or broadcast, and a young British fan took it upon herself to livestream and commentate as a spectator. She did a bang up job, and the little community of fans (several hundred!) watching and commenting on the stream, as well as the r/cyclocross subreddit, was full of joy, praise, and gratitude. It wasn’t that thing of just humoring a kid’s well-meaning attempt, either. It was total respect for her skills, amazement and admiration that she was doing this “job” as well as a pro would.
It was such a cool thing to witness. The fandom and love of the sport linking it all together was such a different feel from the paid professional broadcasters, as great as they are. The communal participation instead of one-way consuming. There’s no way to replicate that without an amateur creating something just for the love of it.
- see also: play gives meaning to life, because doesn’t play and fun come closer to something we love?
- see also: what’s the point if we can’t have fun?
- related: it’s useless work that darkens the heart, because of course Le Guin is on the roadmap for this train of thought