I’m a firm believer that we don’t “own” our ideas. Think of the number of times you had an idea for a piece of art, or an invention, or some other thing that didn’t exist before you thought of it. That thing you forgot to write down, or draw, or shoot, only to have that very thing cross your path, created by someone else days, months, years later. That thought you let languish found a home somewhere else. That seed found soil and bloomed into the thing you should have made.

I walk my dog every morning. Most mornings we walk pretty much the same route. So I decided to give myself a challenge. Find something unique along the path I tread daily and take a photo. Somedays there will be something genuinely new. Others I will have to find a way to shoot the mundane with a new perspective.

In 2023 there is virtually no reason to shoot film. It’s expensive. It’s inconvenient. The process is slowwwww (especially if you don’t develop yourself). People who shoot film love the word artisanal and beanies.

So why do I want to master it?

I walk my dog every morning. Most mornings we walk pretty much the same route. So I decided to give myself a challenge. Find something unique along the path I tread daily and take a photo. Somedays there will be something genuinely new. Others I will have to find a way to shoot the mundane with a new perspective.

The first time I deleted my drafts, it felt like a gut punch. I loved those drafts. I loved the words within those drafts. They were lyrical. They touched my soul. They were my darlings. But, in writing, your darlings are really just dead weight. We drag them from project to project. We sift through them as a means of self-congratulation and self-flagellation. “I love what I wrote” collides with “I hate that I didn’t write anything.”

I am the worst combination of two things. I’m a procrastinator and a maximalist. I can have a hard time getting going on tasks and projects. Worse still, I tend to accumulate stuff along the path to productivity. I keep trying to build the perfect environment for productivity and creativity. Until a couple of weeks ago I had a third screen installed on my computer. One for writing, one for media, and one for social media and reading. It was pretty dope. It was also completely ineffective.

We are taught that this time in our heads is procrastination. Imagination is not work shown, so how do we quantify its value? Without that quantifying, how do we determine the value of your work? How do we determine your value as a person without knowing the value of that work?

I have spent a lot of time chasing the quick dopamine hit of a viral moment. I’ve had a lot of small viral moments and one or two big ones. The one thing I can tell you is that they are sugar highs. Quick spikes with prolonged lows. Chasing virality doesn’t lead to growth. At least not for me.

I was what I call fresh homeless. I slept on the train wearing a leather bomber with a lovely cable knit cardigan with another heavy sweater underneath, boots that were more fashion than function, all paired with matching wool gloves and scarf. I carried a two-thousand-dollar laptop, a thousand-dollar cellphone, and three-hundred-dollar headphones in my faux-military backpack. If I ever needed to beg for money, I wouldn’t have gotten a dime.

One evening, my father was heading to the bodega and asked me if I wanted anything. “Pick me up a six-pack,” I said, straight-faced. My father, just as straight-faced, “Go get your money.”