I draw out the last colourful box of my poster, writing out the missing section. It’s finished. I flip through my work, admiring the finality of a double spaced, well-margined, titled and referenced document. I think I expected myself to fail - or perhaps, by that, I mean I expected myself to never complete this project at all. It’s not my subject area. It’s too important. There’s too much I don’t know. Knowledge seemed like a rabbit pulled from the magician’s hat - there was no telling how many more I could tug out. How do I know what I do not know? How do I find the edges of not only my own but common understanding, in a field that isn’t mine, and then expand it? It felt like endlessly falling, only hoping an imaginary floor would hold me firm. 

What sustained me was knowing that this research matters, that it will have an impact, however small. Somewhere in that fall, I found a passion for the kind of public policy that helps people directly: that hears people out, that values their voices, that helps build a community which sustains itself. I found, too, an understanding of my own delicate process of work: that my procrastination is born not of laziness, but self-doubt that stains every instant and threatens to paralyse me. 

In the end, it was accepting the possibility of failure, the potential imperfection of my work that actually allowed me to move forward. Perhaps, that was my real finding in this project - the understanding that showing up imperfectly is still showing up. That sharing what I feel needs to be shared matters more than sharing it perfectly. If this work does one thing, I hope it’s this: it nudges one more person towards policy that listens, toward a world that understands the value of art and creative fields in our world.