"What nobody tells people who are beginners — and I really wish someone had told this to me...is that all of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, and it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not.

"But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase. They quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know it’s normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story.

"It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through."

—Ira Glass (full clip here)

Last weekend, I shook the hand that feeds me, as Michael Pollan would say. Well, I didn't literally shake his hand. But I took a tour of the farm, had a picnic on their lawn, and listened to a family bluegrass band while they were serving slow-roasted goat and pork outside the barn. Full of Life Farm is raising meat in a way that's sustainable, humane, and just downright awesome. They're giving us the gift of delicious food and they're passionate about how that food gets to our plates—and how it lives before it gets there. And the group of 70 or so who took the farm tour, we're able to give them a gift by supporting a family and enabling change within the farming community. It's a cycle of beautiful gift-giving.

I'm reading Seth Godin's Linchpin right now, and so I'm on the lookout for artists and gift-givers. At the farm, I had a conversation with my friend about how this farmer is probably working thrice as hard and making less money than the factory farmer down the road because of the standards he has set for his farm. But I wonder if he would change anything. I don't think so, because it seems he has taken the hard road for a reason. He's opted for the path that means you work more and harder, but the work is more fulfilling.

We seem to have this ideal of working less time for more money. If only I could work less, I would have more time to do such and such. But Seth's idea is that when the work is our art, we work more—but it's not the soul-sucking scramble to the top, it's work that makes our lives beautiful and satisfying and it's work that changes and influences others.

Damn, that's some good stuff. But it seems impossible. It seems idealistic and naive. Yet, one hears these stories; people do amazing, inspiring, creative things every day. How? Just start doing something. And keep working to make it something great. (Cue You're the Best Around. Crank it up.)