I made bread yesterday.

“Wow, great Isabel, we’re all very proud of you.” And listen, even though this is the internet, I can still hear the sarcasm. Jackass.

For real though, I did make bread yesterday. It was honestly not as hard as I thought it would be, mostly because it involves just letting things sit for an hour at a time and because I had a stand mixer. But I did it, got the recipe off Pinterest and now I have two loaves of honestly pretty decent bread in my apartment.

Yes, Pinterest. Just as I can hear your sarcasm, I can also feel your- disbelief? disdain? I’m not sure, feelings are a lot harder to make out than intonation. Seriously though, I actually did something I pinned on Pinterest.

For me to get where this article is actually going, I need to explain a thing or so. I’m a film and video major, which means I make things to watch and hear, basically. What this also means is that I don’t really work with anything physical. A lot of my friends are painters, or sculptors, or printmakers- hi, art school. What that means is that they are constantly producing content that is present physically. Film and video rarely allows that.

When you create images that aren’t time based, they can be shown anywhere, anytime. Just throw that shit up on a wall. So when I go to exhibitions and gallery openings with my friends, I rarely see video work, simply because it’s hard to display without creating a special screening, and who has the time to sit there and watch a video when there’s so much else to see?

What happens then is that it’s hard to feel like you’re actually “creating” something. Video takes a long time to produce, so your body of work can feel smaller or less than people who work with other mediums. It’s important to kind of watch these feelings and realize where they’re coming from- I had a mild breakdown second semester my freshman year because I thought I might actually be a painting major.

I wasn’t, by the way. Thank god.

I do still paint though, because it allows me to create something- physically- and allows a sort of instant gratification that is hard to find sometimes. I’m not saying painting or sculpting or printmaking is instant gratification- god, no, please don’t come for me in the comments- but I’m using it in a way so that is is.

You can cite that freaking Sesame Street with Tom Hiddleston all you want- when all you do is work in delayed gratification, sometimes you need that instant release.

Back to the bread. Here’s another thing about art school: you get burnt out. In every sort of school or university you get burnt out, really. But in “real” school, people use art as their release. When art is what you’re getting burnt out on, it gets a little tricky.

I honestly think that’s why so many artists turn to drugs and alcohol, and why there’s such a stereotype- we’re thinking LSD and Andy Warhol, absinthe and the French impressionists- you know the type.

So when looking for something that gives instant gratification but isn’t art- I made bread. Some of my friends go rock-climbing. Or play guitar. Or get really, really into Hawaii Five-O and Anthony Bourdain. Whatever, man.

What I’m trying to say is that even if you really love something, whether it be art or linguistics or economics- you freak- you still need to take a break every once and a while. Not just to be a well rounded person, but just to re-charge and think about something else, so you don’t freak out and cry about whether you’re meant to be a painter. Whatever, it probably happens to everyone.

Do you. Take a break. Make some bread.