A rehearsal contains mistakes that make the final performance look as though mistakes were never possible.

Every polished thing conceals the wreckage that produced it. Rehearsal is where the wrong choices get made and discarded, and by the time an audience arrives, all evidence that the performance could have gone otherwise has been removed. What looks like natural ease is the visible residue of many failures nobody was invited to.

When you compare your rough attempts to someone’s finished work, remember you are comparing different stages, not different abilities. Look for the rehearsals wherever you can find them: drafts, outtakes, early versions. And give your own bad first attempts the status they deserve, since they are not a detour from the work but the place where it is actually done.