For the important work, the instructions are always insufficient. For the work we’d like to do, the reward comes from the fact that there is no guarantee, that the path isn’t well lit, that we cannot possibly be sure it’s going to work. It’s about throwing, not catching. Starting, not finishing. Improving, not being perfect.

Yet there is a sense in which all work—including the work of parenting, community-building, and everything else—has this quality of not being completable within our own lifetimes.