Amateur

Based on Wikipedia: Amateur

The Glory of Loving Something for Its Own Sake

Isaac Newton wasn't paid to discover gravity. Gregor Mendel, the father of genetics, was a monk who grew peas in his spare time. Pierre de Fermat, whose last theorem tormented mathematicians for three centuries, worked as a lawyer. Some of the most transformative discoveries in human history came from people who pursued knowledge not for a paycheck, but because they couldn't help themselves.

The word "amateur" comes from the French, meaning "one who loves." And that etymology tells you everything you need to know about a concept that has been celebrated, dismissed, and fundamentally misunderstood across centuries.

The Ancient Ideal

The ancient Greeks had a peculiar notion about excellence. When athletes competed in the Olympics, they weren't full-time professionals grinding through training camps. They were citizens—farmers, merchants, philosophers—who happened to be exceptionally good at throwing things or running fast. The idea was that pure intent mattered. An open mind mattered. Passion for the endeavor mattered more than technical optimization.

This wasn't naivety. It was philosophy.

The Greeks believed that when you pursue something purely for love, uncorrupted by financial necessity, you approach it differently. You're free to experiment. Free to fail. Free to follow curiosity wherever it leads, rather than chasing whatever the market rewards.

The Gentleman Amateur

Fast forward to 17th century Britain, and this ancient ideal found new expression among the gentry. The "gentleman amateur" became a phenomenon that would shape the modern world in ways we're still reckoning with.

Picture a wealthy man with time on his hands and an insatiable curiosity about how the world works. He collects specimens—rocks, insects, strange plants from distant lands. He builds what were called "cabinets of curiosities," essentially proto-museums crammed with fascinating objects. He reads voraciously. He corresponds with other curious minds. He observes, measures, and speculates.

This wasn't idle dilettantism. This was the birth of modern science.

The Royal Society, which remains one of the world's most prestigious scientific institutions, was essentially a club of gentleman amateurs. Francis Bacon, who articulated the scientific method itself, was one. Isaac Newton, arguably the most influential scientist who ever lived, was another. Sir Robert Cotton amassed a collection of manuscripts so important that it became the foundation of the British Library.

These men weren't employed as scientists. There was no such profession. They were landowners, clergymen, minor nobles. But their amateur investigations laid the groundwork for everything that followed.

The Two Faces of Amateurism

Here's where things get complicated.

The word "amateur" carries two completely opposite connotations. On one hand, it suggests purity of motive and freedom of inquiry. On the other, it implies incompetence. When someone calls your work "amateurish," they're not complimenting your devotion—they're saying you don't know what you're doing.

Both associations have truth to them. Amateurs often lack formal training. They're self-taught, which means they might miss fundamental principles that professionals learn early. A weekend carpenter might build a bookshelf that collapses. An amateur surgeon would be terrifying.

But that same lack of formal training can be liberating. When you haven't been taught "the right way" to do something, you might discover approaches that trained professionals would never consider. You have no orthodoxy to unlearn. No assumptions baked in by years of schooling.

There's a particular kind of amateur—the dilettante—who dabbles in many fields without mastering any. The word comes from the Italian "dilettare," meaning to delight. A dilettante takes superficial pleasure in various pursuits without going deep. It's often used as an insult, but there's something to be said for wide-ranging curiosity, even if it never settles into expertise.

The Olympic Battleground

For most of the 20th century, the Olympics became ground zero for a bitter philosophical war over amateurism. The stakes were enormous, and the contradictions were absurd.

The official position was simple: only amateurs could compete. The logic traced back to those ancient Greeks—sports should be about pure competition, not commerce. If you'd accepted money for your athletic abilities, you were tainted.

Jim Thorpe learned this the hard way. In 1912, he won gold medals in the decathlon and pentathlon, dominating with such authority that the King of Sweden called him the greatest athlete in the world. Then someone discovered he'd once accepted expense money for playing minor league baseball. Not a salary. Just expense money—enough to cover food and lodging while traveling with the team. His medals were stripped. One of the greatest Olympic performances in history was officially erased because of a few dollars.

Meanwhile, the Soviet Union was developing a creative interpretation of the rules. Their "amateur" athletes were technically employed as soldiers or students. In practice, many of them trained full-time, supported entirely by the state. They were professionals in everything but name.

This created a massive problem, particularly for ice hockey.

Canada's Hockey Rebellion

By the late 1960s, Canadian hockey officials had a legitimate grievance. Their players were genuinely amateur—young men with jobs and school and lives outside the rink. The Soviets were fielding what amounted to a national professional team, disguised in amateur clothing. The Canadians were getting crushed.

The Canadian Amateur Hockey Association, or CAHA, pushed for permission to use professional players. They weren't asking for much—just the ability to compete on equal terms. The International Ice Hockey Federation initially agreed, allowing Canada to use nine non-NHL professionals for the 1970 World Championships.

Then Avery Brundage stepped in.

Brundage was the president of the International Olympic Committee, and he was a purist. A zealot, really. He warned that if hockey allowed professionals, the sport might lose its Olympic status entirely. The International Ice Hockey Federation reversed its decision.

Canada did something remarkable in response. They walked out. Withdrew from all international hockey competition. Their officials declared they wouldn't return until "open competition" was instituted—meaning everyone, professional or amateur, could play.

It took years, but Canada eventually won. In 1976, the International Ice Hockey Federation agreed to open competition in the World Championships. The Olympics took longer. NHL players weren't allowed in Olympic hockey until 1998, but by then the amateur facade had crumbled across all sports.

The Collapse of the Amateur Ideal

After Brundage retired in 1972, the amateur rules began dying a slow death. Every Olympics brought new challenges, new absurdities, new exceptions that made the whole system look ridiculous.

Consider the 1984 Winter Olympics. The IOC had crafted a rule saying that if you'd signed an NHL contract but played fewer than ten games, you were still technically amateur. But the United States Olympic Committee disagreed. They argued that signing any contract with a professional team made you a professional, period, regardless of games played.

Emergency meetings were held. Five players were ultimately declared ineligible—one Austrian, two Italians, two Canadians. Meanwhile, players from other professional leagues like the World Hockey Association were allowed to compete, because apparently those didn't count as "really" professional.

By the 1990s, everyone gave up pretending. The amateur rules were abandoned almost entirely. The 1992 Olympics featured the original Dream Team—Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird—playing basketball for the United States. Nobody pretended these millionaire superstars were amateurs. Nobody cared anymore.

Only wrestling maintains amateur-only rules, and for a peculiar reason: professional wrestling is largely staged entertainment with predetermined outcomes. The amateur rules distinguish real competitive wrestling from the theatrical version you see on television.

The Amateur Renaissance

Just as the official amateur status was dying in organized sports, something unexpected happened. Amateurism experienced a renaissance in entirely different fields.

The open source movement in computer programming is essentially amateur culture applied to software. Thousands of people contribute code not because they're paid to, but because they find the problems interesting. Linux, the operating system that runs most of the world's servers, was started by a Finnish student as a hobby project. Wikipedia itself is written by amateurs.

Amateur astronomy has made genuine scientific contributions. When professionals point their telescopes at distant galaxies, amateurs sweep the sky for comets and asteroids. They've discovered many. Amateur radio operators helped develop radio technology itself—Guglielmo Marconi started as a young man tinkering with equipment in his parents' attic.

Amateur dramatics—community theater—persists everywhere, often achieving remarkable quality without Broadway budgets. Local history societies are staffed by amateur historians who know their communities better than any professional ever could. Amateur linguists document dying languages before they disappear.

The Blurring Line

Something strange has happened in recent decades. The distinction between amateur and professional has become increasingly murky.

Consider music. Recording equipment that once cost millions can now fit on a laptop. Distribution that once required record label contracts now requires only an internet connection. Some of the most innovative music is made by people who would technically be classified as amateurs—they don't earn their primary income from music—but who produce work that's indistinguishable from professional output.

Same with photography. The camera in your phone is more capable than professional equipment from twenty years ago. Instagram is full of amateur photographers whose work rivals anything in galleries.

A new term has emerged: "pro-am." Professional-amateur. It describes people who approach amateur pursuits with professional intensity. They might earn some money from their passion. They might not. What matters is the quality of their work and the seriousness of their commitment, not their employment status.

What We've Learned

The history of amateurism reveals something important about human motivation. We do our most interesting work when we're driven by curiosity rather than obligation. The gentleman amateurs who founded modern science weren't chasing grants or tenure. They were chasing answers. They wanted to understand how the world worked, and they had the freedom to follow that desire wherever it led.

This doesn't mean professionalism is bad. Professionals have discipline and training and accumulated wisdom that amateurs lack. The ideal might be some combination—the professional's skill with the amateur's passion. The expert's knowledge with the beginner's fresh eyes.

Gregor Mendel growing peas in his monastery garden, patient and curious, counting traits and recording patterns that would eventually revolutionize biology. Grote Reber building a radio telescope in his backyard, listening to the static of the cosmos. Pierre de Fermat scribbling in margins while his legal briefs waited.

One who loves.

Perhaps that's still the most important qualification for doing anything that matters.