An unappreciated art

Here are two theoretical students competing for a Wells Scholarship. Assume that their grades are academically equivalent.

One is John. In high school, he participated in an applied science competition dealing with climate change and, due to his innovative solution, he won first place.

He was also captain of the tennis team, president of student government, created his own startup business selling an energy drink, and saved countless cats from countless trees.

Then there’s Henry. He played in his school’s orchestra. By his senior year, he was concertmaster and made it to All-State Orchestra. On the side, he picked up several other instruments — saxophone, drums, guitar — and became proficient at each.

He was also interested in poetry and often gave readings at a coffee shop in his town.

Who would you pick to win the scholarship?

My guess, and I believe it is a fairly accurate one, is that you would pick John. And it is not bad that you picked him. He is an accomplished person who would take full advantage of the opportunities that the scholarship gives him. However, there is Henry who wasn’t picked, despite his involvement in the arts.

I believe this is because his interests produce no tangible results, nothing that he could put on a resume or an application and say, “I succeeded in this very public way.”

Yet he worked just as hard as John. Each of the poems he wrote took weeks to perfect, and he might have become a community staple at the coffee shop, often drawing crowds up to 50 people. There is no way to say that concisely on an application, though. And, even if there was, it would come across as, “Hey, I write poems, which pales in comparison to John’s abundant accomplishments.”

The issue here is that the humanities are not taken as seriously as science, politics or business. When one compares a portfolio of poems to an innovative solution for climate change, there is no reason to expect the poem to ever be picked because the poems seem simple and science seems far more difficult and relevant.

This results from a misunderstanding on the difficulty of creating such works of art. I have definitely experienced this.

Surrounded by science majors studying for a test in Ergonomics, I can feel them glare at me and then eventually tell me how lucky I am and how easy I have it as I work on my short story for creative writing.

Indeed, Ergonomics is hard, but do not belittle the work of those majoring in the humanities. I’m on my fifth draft of my short story, and I’ve been working on it for three months. It’s mentally exhausting.

But nobody ever sees this side of humanities. They never see the emotional and spiritual work it takes to create something out of nothing. They just see a person sitting at a table who does not have to deal with chemistry while they have to cram four chapters in one night.

Believe me. We work hard too.

allenjo@indiana.edu