Mama's Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Writers

Let 'em be doctors and lawyers and such

The song by written Ed Bruce and released in 1976, Mama's Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys, made it number one on the Country Music Charts by Willy Nelson and Waylon Jennings in 1978. In the song, the plea to mothers of young children was, “let 'em be doctors and lawyers and such" because being a creator is a hard living. The gist of the song was, it is a far easier life to be one who makes a living off others’ misery, a boundless commodity in all human history, than to be one who creates things with their hands. For neither doctors nor lawyers earn a dime when someone's life is flowing smoothly, and all is well.

Thus, it has been the case throughout time and memorial, the creators of the world have been subject to those who profit from their labor. The skilled carpenter is beholden to a contractor, or worse yet a union, for his wages. The musician is beholden to the streaming services, or worse yet a label, to receive their compensation. The rancher and the grain farmer are beholden to the processor or the co-op to buy their production. In every circumstance where there is a worker creating, there is a middleman managing the process and curating a fee off that labor. On top of that, added to the profiteering off the backs of creators, is the greatest curator of human labor themselves, the government. In the US alone, the Federal government extracted 4.90 trillion from its human laborers just last year.

What the song suggested was, it is a far better life to be a curator of creators than to be one who creates. Nowhere, much to the chagrin of unions who were the largest non-government curators of labor in the 20th century, is anyone profiting more from labor today than the tech industry. You see, in the early days of computer technology, software developers wrote code and sold their resulting products. I am old enough to remember buying a program disk, loading the software onto my computer, and then storing the disk (my property) on a shelf. When and upgrade was released, I purchased the new release and repeated the process. In the early days of the tech industry, there was a direct financial correlation between software developers and software consumers.

But then something happened to this symbiotic software creator to consumer relationship. Software companies looked at the sweet deal governments had regarding siphoning percentages off creator labor and they wanted themselves a piece of that grift. Tech companies switched their business model to Software As A Service (SAAS,) and just like that, these companies became the greatest curators of creator labor short of the big granddaddy of them all, government. In J. R. R. Tolkien world, he would describe this evil power, crafted in deception in the fires of Mount Doom, as:

Three Rings for the techy-kings under the sky,

Seven for the SAAS-lords in their halls of stone,

Nine for media men doomed to die,

One for the government on its dark throne

In the Land of D.C. where the Shadows lie.

One grift to rule them all, One grift to find them,

One grift to bring them all and in the darkness bind them

In the Land of D.C. where the Shadows lie.

For what SAAS has brought unto society is the second greatest extractor of labor by percentages of all time. We, in western societies, have bought into the grift because of convenience. That little indispensable, portable screen that goes everywhere with us, even into the bathroom, has us hooked on convenience. We are convenience junkies and the grift-bearers behind the technology know it. And because of that, we have placed digital curators between creators and those who consume their products in unprecedented fashion. It is everywhere and it operates 24/7.

Want some food from a restaurant? Order from DoorDash or make a reservation on OpenTable. Both extract percentages from the food creators for convenience of using the little screen so one doesn’t have to stop watching the big screen.

Want a new play list for a workout? Go to Spotify and cobble together your favorite songs into a playlist and they will send fractions of a penny to the artist creators of your workout mix.

Want to take a vacation? Go to Expedia, or ABNB to book your travel and they siphon off large percentage points from the end airline, vacation, and car rental companies.

Want to be entertained on small and large screens alike? Go to YouTube, Netflix or any number of streaming services and make your selections. Again, mere fractions of pennies make it to the creators of our entertainment.

Finally, want to read a book, or an on-line article from your favorite author? Go to the largest keeper of the written word in the world, Amazon, to make your convenient purchase. Whether it be a physical book, Kindle or Audible version, fractions of the sale make it to the creator author. The same goes for this platform, Substack, that I choose to publish my work. Although the percentages extracted from authors' work is far more beneficial to the author than traditional publishing options, Substack still profits from individual creator work and creator marketing efforts. Quality matters little, the percentages are the key and are derived from individual self-promoting authors working hard to grow their subscription base.

As Ed Bruce’s song implies, tis a far easier life to manage the creativity of others then to be a creator oneself. Better yet, tis far better to have one’s income tied to the pain and suffering of others like “doctors and lawyers and such” then to be a creator. That is of course if one ties self-worth to self-earnings. But for the creators and the God that inspires them, there is more to be gained from living a good life then money.

DoorDash and OpenTable extract percentages from restaurants for offering convenient services, but they will never know the satisfaction of creating a beautiful plate, nor will they see the joy in the faces of a young couple on their first date. So too for all the above mentioned SAAS curators of creators, they make their percentages from those who create music, books, movies, and vacation memories but will never experience the joy the creation brings to the end user.

An old friend, a hospital chaplain, and I shared breakfast a while back and I asked him, how many deaths had he witnessed? He said that he never kept track but estimated it was around 1,500. I asked him what did he learn from being at the bedside of so many people in their final earthly moments? He replied, “people recounted their regrets.” My chaplain friend reported that well over 90% of the death bed patients listed their regrets prior to their passing. They regretted not making amends with a family member, not spending more time with loved ones, not taking a chance on a starting that business, not writing that novel that was swirling about their head, or not continuing with their love of art. Not one, according to the minister, ever said they regretted not working more.

My guess is, those 90% that listed their regrets upon departure from this earthly plain, were not creators, they were the curators of others’ creation. Those that create leave a lasting memory of their existence. The mother who creates a loving home, the artist that creates a lovely painting, the songwriter that creates a catchy tune, the actor the preforms an outstanding role and the writer that pens a beautiful sonnet create something beyond themselves, they create memories. For all curators of creators appear to be destined to the fate of Albert Pike’s proclamation:

What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal.

For the good of your soul, create. Be a writer, a musician, a cabinet maker, or an entrepreneur. Soak up the beauty of God’s world and stay for the dessert. There is nothing sadder than a life lived with regrets. And finally, mamas let your babies grow up to be cowboys. Their lives will be enriched by the work they do and the memories they leave behind are immortal.