"Maybe it’s not the notion of mastery I’m bothered by, but the focus on it. And perhaps, like many other things, I think it’s just the wrong goal. Mastery is a by-product of doing the thing we love, with growing skill, over a period (usually a long one. No, a whole year doesn’t count). It is the result of what we aim for, not the thing itself, and I think it’s an important difference because mastery gained from years of making photographs for the love of it will produce something very different from mastery gained simply from chasing mastery: heart. The pulse of an artist’s passion. The salt of tears and sweat. The photographs resulting from the one will be technically perfect, and perfectly forgettable; the photographs from the other will be human, resonant, beautiful. Unforgettable, even if imperfect. Perfection is over-rated, and not to be confused with mastery."
-David DuChemin

http://davidduchemin.com/2013/10/toward-mastery/