I believe I got that from Lois Macmaster's Bujold's Miles series as part of some parenting advice and decided to use it in my parenting.

The more I get done, the more I find needs done… ~ Goods

Take care of your tools and they will take care of you.  JmShrader

A self-taught man has an apt student, but a fool for a teacher. ~ Purple Bullet

There are no dangerous tools... only dangerous fools.  Purple Bullet

Or as we say in my line of work, “Not asking is worse than a No. Not asking means you’ve deprived someone of an opportunity to say Yes.”  JHCC

Diorama courtesy of JHCC

Keep in mind, indecision is the key to flexibility. ~

 

Courtesy of Ted Ewert

Sometimes there's a fine line between humor and a clinical concern.

Without instability there is NO maneuverability.  From flight manuals and aircraft design reading I did decades ago. I actually toyed with designing and building my own hang glider, of course. Learning to fly one cured that ambition. 

Frosty The Lucky.

There are lots of things out in the world that I am HAPPY to have other people design and build;  I'm not so arrogant as to asssume I can improve *everything*!

Knowing I probably can't or won't try to improve everything doesn't keep me from thinking about it. 

Frosty The Lucky.

Knowing when to stop improving and just call it done is also a gift.

Unfortunately you can't make anything fool proof, fools are too inventive. ~ Frosty

“The very command of means leads to their abuse: when Art struggles it succeeds; when reveling in its own successes, it as signally fails.” -- Owen Jones, The Grammar of Ornament

Ahh, Artists are *supposed* to be starving?  I know of artists on both sides of that line and while self indulgent does seem to side more on the $$$ side there are still some good artists that are on that side too.

I don't think Jones is speaking economically, but artistically. In other words, he is cautioning against artistic complacency and advocating for continual struggle to improve one's aesthetic perception and artisanal skills.

I don't know about that, seeing a great work done at the height of a master's powers is not always less than one where an artist is struggling with a new mode.

However I will agree that complacency is the enemy of great art.

Yes, but I think Jones's point is twofold: that the master achieved mastery through struggle, and that the master *remains* a master because they *continue* to struggle. In other words, a work by a master who has become complacent may be technically brilliant, but aesthetically uninteresting. 

Similarly, I've been to performances by virtuoso musicians who were clearly just going through the motions. Their technique was amazing, but the music was utterly boring.

I wonder what effect shorter lifespans would play into that.  19th century could be quite grim that way.

I was just reading this morning that the great Dutch painter Hendrik ter Brugghen died when he was only 41. 

To borrow from Tom Lehrer (and adjusting for my own age): "It's people like that who make you realize how little you've accomplished. It's a sobering thought, for example, that, when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for eighteen years."

Going on 30 in my case; but on the other hand; he got started earlier too!

https://youtu.be/qzucWnQpfZY

 

Thank you for that I feel so much more *alive* now.

Gee THANKS! The rabbit holes leading off that video are insidious! Weird Al to scam baiting to I don't now what. I should've started younger. <sigh>

Frosty The Lucky.

Vincent van Gogh: ear today, gone tomorrow.

One positive thing about being an aging smith---my students are trying to make sure I don't overdo things and so try to do the loading and unloading and moving heavy stuff for me.  (You have 1 insulin crash and ER visit and folks start treating you like you're feeble and frail---I should have had one *years* ago!)