Every single craft has been paying “The Passion Tax” for generations. This term (coined by author and organizational psychologist Adam Grant) — and backed by scientific research — simply states that the more someone is passionate about their work, the more acceptable it is to take advantage of them. In short, loving what we do makes us easy to exploit.

If the phrase “vocational awe” isn’t part of your lexicon yet, stop scrolling and read Fobazi Ettarh:

It seems to me that our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others. So it happens that when I write of hunger, I am really writing about love and the hunger for it, and warmth and the love of it and the hunger for it … and then the warmth and richness and fine reality of hunger satisfied … and it is all one.

Food transgresses the ‘boundaries’ between here and there, us and them, me and you, until we are all just bundles of matter, eating and being eaten. When we feed each other, we give a bit of ourselves to form the fabric of someone else. This is the glue that binds us.