Bagels

Bagels. Goose eggs. Zero, zilch, nada. Whole lotta nothin' goin' on.

The trick we must play on ourselves is to believe that we can learn and improve with effort. Fake it till you make it, as they say. We try new things and are transformed. Even if those changes may seem slow at times, they do occur.

We drank some of our first batch of homebrew last night, a porter. It is not particularly good, but it is particularly ours, made with our own hands. We could at least taste the effort.

And since this is all one giant experiment, we played with our food. Take some shredded coconut and brown it in a frying pan. Toss in some vanilla extract, some almond extract. Dump all that into a French press with the beer, and voila, it's a totally different drink. Still not particularly good, but now in a way that tastes more like amaretto.

The process reminds me a lot of writing or making music. Yes, eventually you'd like to end up with something resembling what you intended to created. In the meantime, pay attention to the process and make tweaks as needed, enjoying the mistakes made along the way. Some of those mistakes could lead to new and exciting discoveries: an unexpected twist of phrase or flavor combination.

None of this is revolutionary, but it's good to be reminded every now and then that such things are not only possible but likely given enough time and effort. So the sooner you start and the more you apply yourself, the better your chances.

This is what we tell ourselves as we try to fake it till we make it. The alternative is to do nothing at all, but there will be plenty of time for that before we know it.