The quality of what you do matters to the quality of the whole. You get into production work because one day in your own past you decided that you don’t do what you do without a personal investment. What you do defines who you are.
Read MoreTHE AMATEUR MOVE
The amateur move is to abandon a project when it’s hard to know how to complete it well. The amateur move is to say you don’t know how to find a conclusion, how to find more energy to finish a long simmering project, how to cut out parts that you know, deep down, simply gotta go.
Read MoreYOUR INTERN MIGHT KNOW THE ANSWER
Smartly selected interns are trend spotters, idea generators, culture absorbers, hope machines. They’re looking to build lives—their own—and the by-product of that energy is often an industrious and energetic effort.
Read MoreHIGHS AND LOWS
A life spent with all things largely known at daybreak is unlikely to yield much in the way of success when the sun goes down. Success usually comes from the discovery of something that was unknown, be that a new business partnership, a piece of art, or smartly executed social media campaign.
Read MoreBOREDOM
Boredom suggests a restlessness that must be fed
Read MoreCLEAN DESK
I seem to be in an eternal rearguard action with my desk. It drives me crazy. But, lo and behold, I think I’ve finally figured out how this mess always happens.
Read MoreACTING WITHOUT THINKING
The process of successful creation is intangible. I know there is sky above me and I know there is air all around me and I know that the air around me connects directly to the sky above me. Somewhere the two meet, but the dividing line is a fiction of language, a function of our senses being given over to words. There is no dividing line between air and sky, but we describe the expanse of blue overhead as something different than the wind moving leaves on the trees.
Read MoreTHE DINKY JOB
If you care about what you create, every project you undertake has to have a standard of quality on which you can confidently put your name. If you cannot bear to have your name on a creative work, you shouldn't take the gig.
Read MoreTHERE’S NO SUCH THING AS AN IRRELEVANT JOB
There’s no such thing as a meaningless job if you’re doing something germane to a collective effort.
Read MoreTHE THINGS THAT KILL CREATIVE SOULS
Taxes are not the problem in and of themselves, and yet, to an creative person, the act of preparing taxes is a psychic exsanguination.
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