This took me years to learn. How often do you see blokes behind the barbie with massive flames erupting from all corners, flipping steaks and rolling snags over and over and over again and still you end with a plate of cancer?
As an enthusiastic amateur in the kitchen, I found the real joy to be in the preparation. The discipline and skills required with a knife take years to master. Sushi chefs don’t touch fish for the first ten years of their training.
Actual cooking where I’m interacting with the food is relatively short. Eating is longer but not by much.
And I found this is different places starting with Lego. Model builders will tell the same story; the joy is in the building not the playing or displaying. Hands-on being creative using skills and talents, experimenting, failing and trying again is the real fun. Pushing a toy train around – not so much.
Building a business, working on campaigns, creating stories, making movies is where the joy lies. Not sitting in a corner office, seeing an ad on TV or watching your film because seriously, after the first screening it’s all just an existential wank fest. Move on.
Again I say, the journey is the important part of the trip, not the destination. Because how many people do you know end up where they wanted to be? I wanted to be an astronaut, chef, carpenter, cinematographer in that order. I ended up a creative director in advertising agencies and now a consultant.
I did not see that coming.