A Quote by Herbie Hancock

When you talk about 'doing the work', that's the work I'm interested in. What can I contribute as a human being? — © Herbie Hancock
When you talk about 'doing the work', that's the work I'm interested in. What can I contribute as a human being?
I feel like I'm changing as a human being, and I think that the work needed to be in line with where I'm at. When I was younger and I was making political work, I was trying to figure out where my work fit in because when you're young you're like, "I don't know." I'm Latino, I grew up in Mexico, and so I thought that maybe I had to talk about those things. Then finally I didn't need my identity to rely on anymore. So now the work is becoming about more esoteric things, I guess - my own sort of language.
Work doesn't have to be great in order to dignify it as work. Work just is. It's quite value-neutral. The issue is about what kinds of power and control you have at work as a human being. That's the commonality. It's not necessarily what the task is.
Her work, I really think her work is finding what her real work is and doing it, her work, her own work, her being human, her being in the world.
If I read a script and the subject stays with me - then that's when I want to go to work. Before, I was very addicted to being on set, and I was doing three or four movies a year for many years. Now, fortunately, I can go to work only when I am passionate about a project, and the rest of the time, I can live my life. I'm not interested in doing movies just as a marathon. When I go to work now, I have much more to give. But the other way, you get empty.
I think is about confidence. Is about doing the right things. Is about being healthy. Is not about if I want to work or if I don't want to work. Is about if I can work or if I can't work.
Given that all our lives rest on work that defines us, the business of labor, the wealth that work manifests itself to, I find it odd that not much is written about it. We talk about relationships, damage, adultery, revolution, but we don't talk about work.
I'm somewhat old-fashioned, and I still talk about playing a part. I don't talk about my work - 'I've seen some of your work' - there's not much work in it, is there?
Because I'm a man who works, who knows what a human being is like inside, who knows that every human being has his worth, and who wants the world to be governed by work and not by opinions about work.
I don't want my learning curve to be stunted by just all of a sudden doing work all the time and not being careful about the work that I'm doing.
We talked, she and I. She asked about my work and it was a pretense, she was not interested in my work. And when I answered, it was a pretense. I was not interested in my work either. There was only one thing that interested us, and she knew it. She had made it plain by her coming.
I believe in doing my work quietly and not make a big hullabaloo about it. That is how I operate. I don't see any other reason to be visible for; I like it when people talk about my work - that is what I am here for.
I want to be paid fairly for the work that I'm doing. That's what every single woman around the world wants. We want to be paid on parity with a man in a similar position. And I think it's important to talk about it.... It's brave of those women to come forward and make a point about it. Now younger actresses will have a confidence in those discussions with their agents and be able to say, "Can we make sure that I'm being paid the right amount for the work that I'm doing?"
The REAL American Dream is not about a garage full of new cars, winning the lottery, or retiring to a life of ease in Florida. It's about doing work that has meaning, work that makes a difference, and doing that work with people you care about.
I find that I'm fighting to keep my energy and my passion centered on the work and not on "Will this get me an Oscar?" - which is the way people are starting to talk to me. I'm not interested in the way people are starting to talk to me. I'm not interested in looking at a role that way. That's not what I ever did, and it's not how I can continue to do my work.
Art schools are partly the villain here. (Never mind that I teach in them.) This generation of artists is the first to have been so widely credentialed, and its young members so fetishize the work beloved by their teachers that their work ceases to talk about anything else. Instead of enlarging our view of being human, it contains safe rehashing of received ideas about received ideas. This is a melancholy romance with artistic ruins, homesickness for a bygone era. This yearning may be earnest, but it stunts their work, and by turn the broader culture.
I know that it is impossible to talk about my work. And since it's impossible for me or anybody else to talk about my work, I feel I might as well talk about it.
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