Tom Waits on how to tell whether your craft has become part of culture:
“What you want is for music to love you back. That’s why you pay your dues. You want to feel like you belong and are part of this symbiosis, metamorphosis, whatever you want to call it. That one day … ” He coughs and regroups. “I used to imagine that making it in music – really making it in music – is if you’re an old man going by a schoolyard and you hear children singing your songs, playing jump-rope, or on the swings. That’s the ultimate. You’re in the culture.”
This is true not just of music, but of everything—design, math, science, art, food. If you’ve ever seen a stranger using the thing you made, the feeling is just the same.
