Fear of imperfection
Ever since I last wrote, I’ve been trying hard to write something and publish it for people to see but haven’t been able to because of a fear of imperfection in what I write. Actually, it happens a lot. I like to believe I am a perfectionist, not that I am, but I’d like to believe so. Or atleast that I am striving towards it. A fear of producing something perfect was preventing me from doing something which is good.
In the last week, I drafted a lot of articles on many different ideas but I just couldn’t publish them. I wrote on things which were important to me, which moved me but I wasn’t happy with what I had written. I knew it could have been better.
The definition of perfect here is something that I feel proud of producing, I feel good about and could be at peace with. Although, we all do stuff seeking an acknowledgement of the world around us or of ourselves, it eventually comes down how that makes us feel. It gives us a feeling of being able to create something, of adding value, of playing our part in this entirely meaningless, long drawn out game of life that someone is enjoying at our behest. If we are characters in a game, we might as well have fun while doing it.
I recently read the book The Spy who came in from the Cold by John le Carre (great spy novel, completely different from what you would expect in a spy mystery) which propelled the author into stardom. The author later reflects that his life of comfort was now over. Anything that he ever produces again would always be pried and judged upon by eyes of the world. The activity that brought him joy had suddenly lost its innocence.
I am not sure that how he was able to deal with it but I am trying to internalise it. Instead of waiting for the end product, I want to enjoy the process, every moment of writing, whether I publish it or not is a different matter altogether. And if I do decide to publish it, it is fine if it is crappy. Things get better with time.
After all, what bothers us the most, what keeps us await at night are not the things that we did but we wish we could have done.
How do you guys deal with, if it exists, your struggle for perfection? (I also realised, leaving a blog post with a question is a good way to end when you don’t know how to end it).
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