I've been listening to Annie Dillard's A Writer's Life while I swim laps in my neighborhood (Mueller) pool, I came to the above passage half way through my swim, I like how it translates from writing to video editing, so I've reproduced the passage, changing 'page' to 'timeline' and 'write' to 'edit':
“Who will teach you to edit video?
The timeline, the timeline, that eternal blankness, the blankness of eternity which you cover slowly, affirming time’s scrawl as a right and your daring as necessity; the timeline, which you cover woodenly, ruining it, but asserting your freedom and power to act, acknowledging that you ruin everything you touch but touching it nevertheless, because acting is better than being here in mere opacity; the timeline, which you cover slowly with the crabbed thread of your gut; the timeline in the purity of its possibilities; the timeline of your death, against which you pit such flawed excellences as you can muster with all your life’s strength: that timeline will teach you to edit.”