No one would guess that patience is one of my weak spots, seeing how I choose the slowest way (short of walking) to get from home to the studio. There are faster options — train and metro, even a scooter — but I take a single bus line. The ride takes twice as long as anything else on wheels, but it gives me time to match my inner mess with the life rolling by, both inside and outside the window. No rush, no responsibility.
Rushing has been, for years, one of my recurring topics in therapy. The agony of trying to quickly resolve a commission has often led me to good results, yes — but the road there has been brutal. I’ve shown up to presentations out of breath, cheeks flushed, a stripe of sweat running down my back. So yeah, time-wise I may have saved something, but energy-wise? It’s cost me. Body and budget both took the hit.
Why am I thinking about this today? Yesterday I spent the afternoon chewing on an old book I’ve had for years: Desire According to Gilles Deleuze, by feminist philosopher Maite Larrauri. I don’t know if you’re the type to underline books like there’s no tomorrow — I am. And among the bold strokes made by the Ingrid from ten years ago, one line caught me again: Great creators are like divers: they dive into life, go down deep, and come up to the surface with red eyes and almost no air left in their lungs. Masochistic, and somehow totally right, isn’t it? I don’t think of myself as a great creator, but I do know that full-immersion, come-up-gasping feeling. Suffering and creation — they’ve always gone hand in hand for me. Which might be one more reason why I still haven’t been discharged from therapy.
Seeing design as a verb — not a noun, not a finished thing — lets us approach it as movement, not outcome. As a place you pass through, not a place you land. And honestly, thinking about it like that doesn’t just feel more interesting — it’s also a lot more comforting when, halfway through the morning, the panic to solve everything right now comes knocking.
At some point, my therapist gave me a trick to deal with the anxiety of needing to solve a project right away — and not just solve it, but make it amazing: write out the process. Put into words what’s going on while I search for a solution, even — especially — when nothing seems to be clicking. Why? Because every part of that stretch of time is what shapes “the thing” in the end. A project never just shows up like a mushroom. It’s the result of random detours and half-sure decisions — all of them necessary.
In that same book, Larrauri explains that, for Deleuze, life isn’t something in subjects — it’s what happens between things. A space, a shift, a relationship. And I can’t help but think that’s got a lot to do with our practice. Seeing design as a verb — not a noun, not a finished thing — lets us approach it as movement, not outcome. As a place you pass through, not a place you land. And honestly, thinking about it like that doesn’t just feel more interesting — it’s also a lot more comforting when, halfway through the morning, the panic to solve everything right now comes knocking.
Maybe that’s why I take the bus — to understand why I’m going where I’m going. Or more importantly, to ask myself if I really want to go. Because on this winding route, where every turn shifts the view just enough, I start to see that time isn’t a luxury — it’s the raw material of thought. It’s what lets a job become something more than a task. Like a driver who doesn’t rush the stops, maybe staying with what’s in-between — between start and finish — is the only way to arrive not just on time, but also whole.
Warm regards from the H6 bus,
Ingrid
