A Revelation in a Dark Room

I'm used to watching the scenes in front of me through a digital screen on the back of my camera. I watch the screen, half-press the big silver button, and then take a picture. I could take twenty pictures of the ocean before I found one I liked. I've known how to work a digital camera for years.
That being said, I never imagined the patience and meticulousness that go into traditional photography.
First, there's the manual camera.
"What is this thing?! It weighs ten pounds!"
I can't tell you how many buttons and control panels are on my Nikon N90S, but I can tell you it's well over the three on my Kodak digital.
Each shot takes about a minute to prepare. Press your eye to the viewfinder, focus the image, adjust the aperture and shutter speed, and take the picture before the shot changes. It doesn't sound like much work, but it's certainly more work than aiming and clicking at whatever strikes your fancy.
Then there's the darkroom. No, you can't plug the USB cord into your computer and upload the photos in an instant. You have to stumble blindly into a room that's pitch black, take the cap of your film off with a bottle-opener, and wrap your film seamlessly around a film reel.
Please take note: I can't make it from my bed to my door in the dark. In other words, the darkroom was a challenge.
While swishing chemicals around in the film canister that held my film, I wondered about the end result. Why all this effort? Isn't this why digital cameras now exist? To make our lives easier?
The film dried after another fifteen minutes and as I pulled the negatives off the reel I realized how much of a mess I'd made of rolling the film. It was completely mangled. There were pink stains covering nearly half my negatives, but for some reason I wasn't too disheartened. I'd never held my own negatives up to the light before. These were the photographs I planned. Tiny, black and white versions, but mine nonetheless. They were how I spent my Sunday afternoon, they were all my struggles learning how to operate a manual camera, and they were my first mistakes in the darkroom.
Digital cameras offer us easy access. Manual cameras offer us a sense of accomplishment and pride. The whole film-developing process fosters a connection between you and your photographs. That connection is the difference between feeling like a teenager with a camera and feeling like an artist.