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Why Make Art? Because you must. The new connected economy demands it and will reward you for nothing else. Because you can. Art is what it is to be human.
If you become someone who is uncomfortable unless she is creating change, restless if things are standing still, and disappointed if you haven’t failed recently, you’ve figured out how to become comfortable with the behaviors most likely to make you safe going forward.
“new, complex, and vital.”
Seizing new ground, making connections between people or ideas, working without a map—these
Speaking up when there’s no obvious right answer, making yourself vulnerable when it’s possible to put up shields, and caring about both the process and the outcome—these
Art is the act of a human being doing generous work, creating something for the first time, touching another person.
(all of it, the work, the process, the feedback from those we seek to connect with)
Now that society finally values art, it’s time to make art.
trust, connection, and surprise.
The new, third kind of scarcity is the emotional labor of art.
entrepreneurship, customer service, invention, technology, connection, leadership, and a dozen others.
If your team is filled with people who work for the company, you’ll soon be defeated by tribes of people who work for a cause.
New, Real, and Important
Art, on the other hand, is almost never coherent. It’s messy and comes in fits and starts. It’s difficult to write a table of contents or outline for. It’s unpredictable.
And it demands our attention. It works the way our brains do, not the way our machines do.
The opposite of coherent is interesting.
“for the experience of being alive.”
Make connections. Make a difference. Make a ruckus. Make a legacy.
The art of moving forward lies in understanding what to leave behind.
achievement comes from a culture that celebrates the achievement motive.
there are many individuals who care enough to want to succeed.
work that actually matters?
Change our dreams.
Just because you’re winning a game doesn’t mean it’s a good game.
It was a refuge; it was a place you went to get lost in ideas, to discover and wander, and to plot a course as an academic.
The search for the right answer is the enemy of art.
The best we can hope for is an interesting answer.
Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves.
These are the results of internal trauma, of brave decisions and the willingness to live with dignity.
They are about standing out, not fitting in, about inventing, not duplicating.
The remarkable is almost always new and untested, fresh and risky.
the art that is created by emotional labor, by bringing risk and joy and fear and love to the table.
The assets of trust and leadership and conversation can come only from the difficult work of creating personal art.
how much people will miss you if you’re not back here again tomorrow.
the opportunity to be the one they can’t live without, to become a linchpin (whom we would miss if he didn’t show up).
Since emotional labor scales so dramatically, the ability to bring a little more to the table is the chance of a lifetime.
You don’t need more activity; you have to dig deeper instead.
Have you ever performed a generous, unexpected act? Solved a problem in a new and interesting way? Seen something others didn’t see? Spoken up when something needed to be said?
All that’s left is to figure out how to create habits so you can do it more often.
What if I Screw Up?
We can always repair the mistake or make up for it.
The most rational thing to do is the irrational work of art.
Seek out questions, not answers.
But we’re still lonely. And we’re still bored.
It works because it embraces the individual, not the mob; the weird, not the normal.
See what happens. Uncertain, but worth it.
It’s not art if the world (or at least a tiny portion of it) isn’t transformed in some way. And it’s not art if it’s not generous. And most of all, it’s not art if there’s no risk.
expending emotional labor, working without a map, and driving in the dark involve confronting fear and living with the pain of vulnerability.
The artist touches part of what it means to be truly human and does that work again and again.
Emotional labor is the labor that’s in demand today.
