Lucy,
I’m nuggin’ about in Seth Godin’s new book, The Practice, Shipping Creative Work. Here is how Seth describes the book on this recent Tim Ferris podcast, with a nod to London (hello Sally and Taylor) and a story about the word hack.
Tim Ferriss: I thought we would start where all good things start, and that is the etymology of the word hack, which you introduced me to. What is this word hack, and what context would you like to provide?
Seth Godin: When London was smaller, on the outskirts of London was a borough called Hackney, and Hackney was a place where they would raise horses. They didn’t raise thoroughbreds, they didn’t raise extraordinary show horses. They raised just average horses, average horses at an average price. If you got a Hackney horse, you probably did it because you were, I don’t know, a hansom cab driver and that’s where your nickname came as being a hack, in that you didn’t have a special horse. You simply had a horse. There’s nothing wrong with raising a hack. There’s nothing wrong with buying a hack. Being a hack is about giving the customer exactly what they want at a decent price.
However, it is important to distinguish it from the magic/fraught topic of our art, of that thing that lights us up, the work that we actually want to do. My book The Practice is about that gap between being a hack, selling as if you’re a hack, and the other thing which is the generous act of doing something magic. It really bothers some people to hear their work described as hack work, but I think there’s nothing wrong with it. You should own it because you need to distinguish it from that other work you can do.
I love this idea of owning your ‘hack’ work but finding inspiration to do this other ‘thing’ – something original, something creative, something we feel called to do. We all have this ability, and Godin’s book appears to be a guide to help us find it.
Stay whole Lucy,
Dad
