Unfinished as a Personal Identity Revolution

Incomplete isn't failure; it's the core of being alive.

This will be a quick Monday note this week because I’ve just wrapped up an extended product photoshoot. And I love working on photoshoots. But I am always thinking about their completion. And that led me to consider the fact that we spend so much of our lives chasing completion. The retouched photos, the finished painting, the polished manuscript… and of course, the definitive brand.

But there’s no way to apply that to identity. Identity isn’t meant to be finished. Our drafts and iterations of work and ourselves aren’t something to “be done with.” As if we have to escape the process. Shouldn’t we relish the opportunity to inhabit that in-between?

Photo by Natalia Voitkevich.

When we think of “identity” in the work-world, we think of a static brand or some sort of fixed version of ourselves, but the older I get, or maybe the longer I have my own business, the more this idea feels like a trap—believing that there’s a final version to be revealed. But realistically, that’s not even human. I…