(TL;DR : If you're only thinking about art and creation as a job that needs to be paid, you're not thinking about it deeply enough.)
Why is it important to you that we have high culture and high art, at all ?
There are many levels of culture : your personal history ; the stories and the jokes and the little "catchphrases" that you share with your loved one. The stories you share with your family, what you share with your friends, your neighborhood, your region, your country, your continent, the whole world. But why is there more perceived value in culture and art that spreads globally, or is passed down through centuries ?
Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love listening to music that was written hundreds of years ago, or admiring antique Greek sculptures. But what do I gain from this ? Warm fuzzies, and an appreciation of my place in the history of mankind. But what if we didn't know anything about Bach, what if we had forgotten about Da Vinci, would our culture be poorer ? You cannot feel a loss when you don't even know what you're missing.
The whole idea of art is absurd. Art is Man rebelling against the absurdity of a life where he has to die, and producing even more absurdity ; arranging shapes, colors or sounds to his will, inventing stories, creating useless things (in the sense that you don't need them to survive) that Nature and Time will eventually destroy, too. Some works will survive their authors, a staggering amount won't. But such is the reward of the artist : finishing a work and saying to himself, I will die but I leave this. The true reward of creation is creation itself. Why should a handful of men and women be chosen and financially supported to make greater art ? Why are their useless things more valuable ? Again, why is it important to have a global culture, or art that lasts for centuries ? Why is creating art a valid career in our societies ?
I play the guitar. I wrote some songs, and I like to play for my friends or my family. I've played in bands and I've had great jam-sessions with other musicians. But what I like best is to improvise stuff on my own. Just making up some more absurdity, to forget about everything else. I don't care that my random jamming only reaches my ears, at least I'm doing it before I die.
