I’ve been in this artistic life, post-educational system, for a little over 12 years now. And no matter how much I’ve hustled or pushed or tried to jump ahead, I always get to my destination at the time (and learning) scale it was always going to take. For some projects, it’s lightning fast – a quick stir fry. Others drag on, like an overloaded casserole slowly coming to temp at 350. And some projects are on crockpot time, where I forget I’m even cooking something but miraculously, 12 hours later, end up with a delicious chili.

When we dream big, it’s easy to fixate on the end result. And that’s fine, to an extent; it helps us chart a course. But if we’re always looking ahead, we miss where we actually are. Product comes with process and process is not always clear. In fact, the process is the path to clarity. And that takes the time it takes.

One of my favorite movies of this year's Oscar season was The Substance. Demi Moore gave the performance of a lifetime as an aging starlet who trades her lifeblood for a chance at being a younger version of herself. It's a gory depiction of the same idea I was circling around in that NYU thesis a decade ago, one that the ancient Yogis and Buddhists have been saying for thousands of years: attachment to an identity -- especially one that is based only on external validation -- is the ultimate form of suffering.