Today I taught students how to edit their film. One of the energy ones said, "The intakes are just as important as the outtakes."

So anything that is not a blooper is important. All the main footage you will craft the movie with is important. Yes, that seems like common knowledge.

But when the student said it, it sounded really profound.

When is the intake even more important than the outtakes? When is the good stuff so much better than the bad stuff? Going on good dates far outweighs going on bad dates.

Eating clean food is better than the literal outtakes you’ll have from dirty food.

When are the outtakes more important, or equal to the intakes? Obviously when you’re editing a behind the scenes/blooper reel.

When you’re trying to think of a good idea, you need to have tons of bad ideas. Learning how to run a marathon, you have to first run half a mile and slowly work your way up. When you start a martial art with belts, you need to start at a white belt and develop a base of knowledge to get to black belt. Without that knowledge you wouldn’t be a black belt.

In a way this is, journey is better than the destination.

But Naval Ravikant says if you didn’t have a destination, then you wouldn’t even have the journey. So it’s all about the destination.

Or maybe it’s simply this: in life you have intakes and outtakes. And one of them will be better than the other. But you can’t have one without the other.

You can’t make a good film without messing up some shots. You can’t learn to draw without a crumpled pile of papers next to you. You can’t find your significant other without going on some unpleasant dates.

There’s rainbows and rain. Cold days and warm days. Intakes and outtakes. It’s all the same.