Love, the Secret Ingredient

Clay Shirky, while being interviewed for this new book, Here Comes Everybody:The Power of Organizing without Organizations, explains what I feel, is the key ingredient to achieving success in anything.

I gave a talk at Supernova, a brief talk on the Perl programming language. I was pointing out that the Perl programming language, which has been an absolute mainstay of the web from the earliest days, is held together by love. It's not held together either by government intervention or by corporate investment. It's held together because a bunch of people love Perl, and more importantly, they love one another in the context of Perl. They like being part of a community that makes this language work, and work better.

Love is the key because this outward expression waters and nourishes the seeds of enthusiasm, discipline, and determination. Without it, progress is damned, or hampered at best. Only when these seeds are constantly nurtured will a cause flourish and grow to it's fullest potential.

source: The Worldchanging Interview: Clay Shirky