Notes from JD’s https://sourcesofinsight.com/master-your-craft/
Note I
One of the ways you can transform your ordinary day into extraordinary is to master your craft. By thinking of yourself as a craftsman, you can think of your work as your art.
Note II
Seek the jewel. Mastery is the jewel.
Note III
Teach others your craft. Your growth is a continuous process. You can renew your journey by teaching others. Teaching others will remind you of your original passion.
Note IV
Search within the ordinary things you do every day. if you look to the routines and things you do each day, there’s always opportunity for improvement or transformation. You don’t have to look “out there,” you can look right in front of you.
Note V
I find that simply thinking of my work as my craft gives me a sense of ownership and a sense of play. It helps me to play at my work, while flexing my abilities and growing myself and my job in the process. I’ve even turned some of my most mundane activities into pursuits of excellence and that alone was enough to help me enjoy otherwise routine activities.
Note VI
“The craftsperson develops a knowingness about the work she does that bears its own fruit of being present, or attentive. The craftsperson learns that within the work she does there is a jewel hiding below the surface. That the thrill of the craft is to discover the jewel. And that there is only one way to discover it: to practice the craft mindlessly. To become one with the work. To polish and polish, as though with one’s heart. That there is no way to know when the jewel will show itself, but to trust with all one’s heart that one day, when it is least expected, the jewel will be there! It will appear.”
Final Note
“And so the craftsperson is one who has reached that stage of her development where she is content with the work, and only the work, knowing that it is only through being there with one’s work that the jewel will reveal itself, and that it is the work, and only the work, raised to the level of near perfection that connects the craftsperson with herself, with her own heart. And so she practices, day in and day out, content to do so, without the thrill of the apprentice to keep her going, but knowing deep inside that there is no place to go but here. Unlike the apprentice’s stage, the craftsperson’s stage is long and relatively serene until the day when the jewel does appear, and with it a stunning explosion of light enraptures the craftsperson and brings with it mastery.”
Additional Note
“You’ve seen mastery before, Sarah. You’ve seen it in your aunt’s face, in her eyes, in the way she spoke to you. For the master, there is only one way and that is to teach another. The master is connected to the apprentice as though to her past. As you are to your childhood. The master knows that the process of growing, of change, of transformation, is always moving, never still. Is is in the face of the apprentice that the master sees herself anew. It is in the face of the craftsperson that the master renews her pilgrimage and finds the beauty of giving herself up to work. It is in the face of the work that the master discovers anew why she is so enraptured and, in so doing, brings her rapture to the apprentice to start all over again. In much the same way, Orchestration builds upon that which preceded it, and becomes the foundation for that which is about to follow, and, in the process, honors the past, the present, and the future.”