“Once code stops being scarce, the only thing left to pay for is care.”

The above quote from Geoff Scott of Kindness Flywheel caught my attention a few months ago. I can’t disagree. I’ve spoken before about the importance of doing small things well even when they won’t be seen, how details matter, and the motivating power of empathy. Care sums it all up beautifully.

This is not a new concept. I’m told the philosopher Martin Heidegger went so far as to consider care (more precisely the German word Sorge) as fundamental to being human. I’m no philosopher (collegiate aspirations notwithstanding) but that certainly seems to make sense at a time when machines are capable of producing so much content without a care in the world. For such content to mean anything, it needs to come from a place of care: for the topic, for the audience, and for the results. If you have that, using generative AI can be a good thing. Without it, not so much.

Care can also be a fantastic way to focus and prioritize. There’s a certain clarity that comes from being honest with oneself about what is cause and what is effect: it’s hard to claim genuine care for a task that’s put off repeatedly or a person that’s kept at arm’s length.

Of course, caring has drawbacks. The associated emotions can be complex and even contradictory. They come with challenges, outbursts, demands, complaints, and a host of other messy stuff that’s no fun in any setting, let alone a professional one. It’s a real effort to channel that emotion effectively (and I know I’m not always great at it), but the spillover is inevitable and not a sign of complete failure or need to panic. Work being stressful is often a sign that you’re doing things right.

I don’t say this to excuse dysfunction, but I’ll take care and its baggage over apathy any day.