“And when the storm is over, you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of a storm, you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what the storm is about”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore
There's a moment just before you launch something, a moment when an idea is still private, when a project is still fledgling, when no one knows what you are doing and no one expects anything from you that is a truly rare moment.
Some people have such a moment only once in their whole lives.
You rarely know when it is happening. But if you are lucky enough to have it come 'round and you are lucky enough to know in that moment that it is happening, then you should savour it.
At the end of a journey, the moment that turns out to be the most meaning is often that one that passed by, quietly, at the beginning. That moment is the garage where computer dynasties were born, the meeting where a movement was sparked, the silence before a new song is played for the first time.
Nothing will ever be the same again, but you don't know it. The moment is so usual, so utterly normal, that you can't see you are standing on the blurry line where "then" ends and "now" begins.