How to make work more human? Quantify the heart we put into it:

Emotional labor is available to all of us, but is rarely exploited as a competitive advantage. We spend the time and energy trying to perfect our craft, but we don’t focus on the skills and interactions that will allow us to stand out and become indispensable to our organization.

Emotional labor was originally seen as a bad thing, a drain on the psyche…[but] the alternative is working in a coal mine. The alternative is working in a sweatshop. It’s called work because it’s difficult, and emotional labor is the work most of us are suited to do. It may be exhausting, but it’s valuable.

I see two ways to view the requirement for emotional labor: first, cynically, as a kind of method acting we all play, a performance not unlike the self-conscious ticks of adolescent girls. Or, you could see it more productively as being a better human: as engaging your emotions with others, and expecting theirs in return; as refusing to embrace the role of automaton. I like the sound of that.

The first gift in the gift of art is that which the artist receives in the act of making. It’s the flush of divine (or otherwise) inspiration that the artist accepts and then puts to good use. As with all gifts, it would be a disservice to question or analyze it. Better to accept it and give thanks.

A brief entry in a mid-nineteenth-century collection of English fairy tales tells of a Devonshire man to whom the fairies had given an inexhaustible barrel of ale. Year after year the liquor ran freely. Then one day the man’s maid, curious to know the cause of this extraordinary power, removed the cork from the bung hole and looked into the cask; it was full of cobwebs. When the spigot next was turned, the ale ceased to flow.

The moral is this: the gift is lost in self-consciousness.

Put another way: the little corner of your brain that wonders whether or not you’re any good at what you’re doing must be silenced for your art to succeed. Godin calls this voice the “lizard brain” and his advice is similar: tell it to shut the fuck up.

A friend of mine had a strange experience when she took her first piano lessons. During an early session, to the surprise of both her teacher and herself, she suddenly began to play. “I didn’t know how to play the piano,” she says, “but I could play it.” The teacher was so excited she left the room to find someone else to witness the miracle. As the two of them came back to the practice room, however, my friend’s ability left her as suddenly as it appeared. Again, the moral seems to be that the gift is lost in self-consciousness. (Thus [Flannery] O’Conner: “In art the self becomes self-forgetful.”) As soon as the musician senses that someone else is watching her, she begins to watch herself. Rather than using her gift, she is reflecting upon it. Cobwebs.

There’s another lesson in there. Don’t share your art too early. Feedback is important, but there’s an early, embryonic stage to making something that should be hidden from the outside world. At first, keep your art close; share it only when it starts to crawl away from you.