Simple acts come down to us because they serve real needs. You plant a tree or sweep a floor or rock a baby without asking the point of your labors. You patch the roof to stop a leak, patch a sweater to keep from having to throw it out. You pluck the banjo because it tickles your ears and rouses Grandpa to dance. None of us can live entirely by such meaningful acts; our jobs, if nothing else, often push us through empty motions. But unless at least some of what we do has a transparent purpose, answering not merely to duty or fashion but to actual needs, then the heart has gone out of our work.
— Scott Russell Sanders, Writing from the Center