Yesterday, I watched Spirited Away for the first time. It’s a 23-year-old film, and I had the honor of watching it in the cinema. The movie was my reward for shipping an intense, all-consuming, seven-day project. Now, I’m reading up on the film, listening to its soundtrack, and watching short clips on Youtube.
Some of those clips have millions of views. They’re edits of scenes from the movie, a real-life reference uncovered, or footage of someone visiting a museum dedicated to Studio Ghibli’s films. Are the shorts well-made? Of course. But they’re 60-second bits. In many cases, it probably took the creator no longer to make them.
My project, on the other hand, that was something else. I dedicated over 30 hours to it within the span of a week. It was demanding but also inspiring. It felt good to focus on one thing till completion. There was a real sense of reward when I shipped it, even if, in this case, it’ll only be seen by a handful of people. And I hope it’ll leave a lasting impression.
Spirited Away, meanwhile, took Hayao Miyazaki his entire adult life to develop. And when they finally started production on the film, which consists largely of hand-drawn animations, Miyazaki and his team spent two years creating over 140,000 frames, along with music, coloring, and plenty of revisions, of course. With so much dedication, perhaps it is no wonder that the movie won an Oscar and, to this day, is widely regarded as one of the greatest anime films of all time—even 23 years later.
Time breathes life into things. A tweet may capture an idea and the minds of millions of people, but for how long? A week of effort put into a project you expected to receive no more than five hours of attention—that stands out. And of course, nothing compares against your life’s work. Years of thinking. Struggle against the odds. Periods of letting it rest, then intense activity. All those hours. You can’t fake them. And while nothing is ever guaranteed, only great work will get better as it ages.
Time breathes life into things—so be willing to breathe time into what you do.