The reality TV show Big Brother is strong evidence in favor of your argument.
It's an artificial environment where people are aggressively prevented from creating anything. You can't even smuggle a pencil and a piece of paper into the Big Brother house -- if you wanted to write or draw something, you'd have to do it with your own blood on the walls, I guess... Once you're in there, your life for the next N months will consist solely of socializing, fucking and eating.
Amazingly, there are millions of people who find this prospect so exciting that they apply for the show year after year.
His advice was not absolute, there are bad days, but overall he was correct. I wake up almost every morning looking forward to what I will solve/build that day. He was a chef, provided a great life for his family and still experiments in the kitchen even in retirement.
I think the "software as a craft" argument also fits here as people who like to program like to tinker at home much like wood working in your garage.
I don't know if I agree - I think if you move up Maslow's hierarchy of needs and they no longer 'want' the basics, they will allow themselves to advance into the 'higher stages' and then desire to fulfill those needs such as socializing, sex, etc. But presumably if those things all come easily as well, they will then move further up the line into creative expression, etc.
I know I've been most creative when I didn't need to be, and everything else in my life was more or less 'taken care of', and I suspect many people would have the same experience.
On what basis do you say that? And how long do you expect it to last before things change?
For one thing, in my experience, most people don't love to create. Most people aren't artists, programmers, writers, chefs, or carpenters because they wake up in the morning and look forward to it. My overwhelming impression from the vast majority of people I've met in my life indicates that creating things is simply not a driving force. If given a complete lack of want, I'm convinced the majority of the world's population will choose to do nothing creative with it, and spend it socializing, fucking, and eating.
Scarcity is pretty much the only reason their butt finds their way to the desk every morning.
Not that there's anything necessarily wrong with that.
Secondly, even for people who have strong passions in a particular craft, there's no accounting for supply and demand. We are incredibly fortunate that our passions lie in a field that is severely under-supplied, allowing us to enjoy incredible compensation and job security in an era where so few have just that. And our situation is highly temporary, I assure you. The ability for your passion to put a roof over your head and provide the basic necessities of life is... questionable.
So while I'm pulling in a 6-figure salary, have insane perks at the office, flexible hours, live in an amazing city, and have the money and time to pursue my dreams, I'm not going to stand on a soapbox and pontificate to everyone how, if they had only followed their passion, they could be happy too.
The reality is that we are the lucky few. For a vast portion of the population following their passions is a one-way ticket to getting evicted and digging through garbage cans.