Forty-three years at the bench, and a full arch still stops me. Early one morning the, lab was  quiet, I caught myself holding one up to the light. Nobody watching. Nobody about to grade it. The patient will never know my name. And I stood there anyway, turning it, looking at the way the value broke across the facial.

This one's a solo, and it's honest.

I talk about the newcomers who never touched a wax-up and went straight to a screen, and why that got under my skin more than I wanted to admit. I followed the resentment all the way down. It wasn't really about them. It was a question I didn't want to say out loud. Am I still necessary.

I'm not going to tie that off neatly tonight. But I'll tell you where I landed, and why I think the thing I spent four decades earning is worth more given away than guarded.

Protect your margins. Protect your meaning.