Writer Anne Lamott says in her popular book on writing, Bird by Bird:
Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft.
She also says:
Perfectionism is a mean, frozen form of idealism, while messes are the artist’s true friend.
Writer Neil Gaiman agrees. He says to beginning writers and artists: “make glorious, amazing mistakes.”
Not only is perfectionism overrated, it is dangerous and destructive to our creative lives. I hate to think how many would-be writers and artists have decided they’ll never be good enough and have given up on their creative lives. The world needs artists much more than we need capitalists. Some even say it is the artists and writers and creative types who will save the world.
Perfectionism, at its most extreme, is considered a mental disorder in the DSM v (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) handbook. The bible of every psychotherapist and counselor, the DSM v classifies perfectionism as “personality pathology.” In other words, perfectionism makes sane people neurotic and depressed. Yet all of us fall into perfectionism at times. It’s so easy to do. Our culture presents it as an ideal. We must have perfect bodies. Perfect jobs. Perfect children. Write perfect prose.
To me, there is a HUGE difference between striving for our personal best and perfectionism. Striving for our personal best not only involves a challenge to our integrity and character, but it also involves the occasional failure and the making of mistakes, all those things that make us human and worth spending time with.
Think of the perfectionists you know. Seriously, are they any fun to be with? When I fall into perfectionism, I’m boring and I don’t even look up to see who else is around. My self-esteem drops. I feel ashamed for being imperfect. In other words, perfectionism is a massive waste of creative energy.
So let us strive for our personal best and feed perfectionism to the lions. It isn’t good for the soul and it certainly isn’t good for the world. While perfectionism victimizes us and gives us no hope of ever reaching our destination, a quest for our personal best allows us to develop our talents and perhaps actually enjoy the journey.
So what do you think? Have you experienced perfectionism as the voice of the oppressor? Are you up for the quest to strive for your personal best knowing mistakes will be made in the process? Thoughts? Questions?
From my facebook author page, Gina commented:
“I really needed to hear this today. I sat down to edit and write last night and what I thought was fabulous a couple days ago seemed absolutely horrid. Perhaps I was looking at it with a perfectionist’s eye.”
And then I replied: We all do that, Gina. That perfectionist’s eye can kill first drafts. Compassionate eyes work best. :)There will be time for an editor’s eye later.
> I sat down to edit and write last
> night and what I thought was
> fabulous a couple days ago
> seemed absolutely horrid.
Ha ha, Gina. I have frequent flier miles on that airline. Sometimes the pilot even lets me come up into the cockpit!
Remember this bit from Sesame Street?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3yOnr2cl3c
I feel like that every time I write. Which is why I don’t do it quite so much anymore.
To Gina and John,
I feel like that when I write, too, and I’ve been writing for almost twenty years, so by now I guess I own the plane.
But what keeps me going is that I choose the opposite response. It makes me determined to get better. Or maybe instead of determined I’m just incredibly stubborn. Or maybe both.
At any rate, I guess over the years I’ve figured out how to cash the frequent flier miles in for a whole new destination. With practice comes confidence. Come with me?
Oh, Susan, what beautiful
And comforting words to share. I think of my many episodes of paralysis in so many arenas and see the ugly head of perfection lurking about. Let’s be kind to ourselves. Thank you for your words of sanity
You’re welcome, Paula. I’m glad it was helpful. You’re not alone in your episodes of paralysis. Some of the most gifted writers I know struggle with it, too. Take care!:)
Susan
I think the quotes of the authors form a good premise for your exploration of the topic.
Perfectionism may run in many authors, but not all – not even the majority. And while it may be considered a disorder professionally, I live in Silicon Valley between Google HQ and Stanford, and you can’t walk five feet without seeing a young person locked up in indecision trying to formulate the perfect answer to one thing or another. It’s the ‘your’re wrong and your out of the hunt’ bias perpetuated for human capital capitalization strategy.
I think if you find a writer with perfectionism in them, it is because of ‘the great knuckle rapping inheritance’ in education and culture, particularly parochial education systems.
We live and work in an oppressive society. It’s just soft skilled and legal in many cultural, social and professional areas that constantly trumpets the legal definitions of equality solely for compliance with law and not intent to uphold it.
This is why we tend to have excellent test scores and little actual progressive leadership, among other biased interests against true progress, such as financial oligarchy for example.
Perfection was also a long utilized technique by the corrupt publishing industry (you know, the guys who taught Hollywood how to screw writers?) to wear down a writer emotionally who was naive yet thrilled a publishing opportunity was on the table in order to cut a better deal for the publisher and financially enslave the writer if they could.
Even today, writers are naive. I was when I began decades ago. Nobody helps you if you aren’t helping yourself, huh?
Another inheritance of the knuckle wrapping mentality tradition.
These guys are full of tricks. Who isn’t? And it’s not just the publishing and entertainment industries anymore. Can anyone say retail or tech? How about farming, politics and doctrine?
This goes far beyond writing. We, who just so happen to be the stewards of description -that powerful cultural meme changing tool, can’t seem to get our skills or heads around that or work with it, much less.
Many authors write it up and ask themselves, Did I get across what I wanted understood?” and then edit for a particularly professional standard – say a list of 25 to 35 basics, 10-15 intermediate and some top end polish stuff.
Then they let it go out because they know their audience understands their voice and will get the material; the creation of understanding being the purpose of communication to begin with.
They also know an intelligent reader is not going to detract qualitative engagement with engaging and interesting content because the author did not comb an offering relentlessly.
They also are creatively mature enough to recognize when their song is well sung, their style was preserved, and that interior barometer of creative growth satisfaction is sloshing back and forth in the gut because the tank was filled emptying it producing the work.
I’ve done it both ways. I’ve let stuff go out right off the cuff with a couple of read throughs and fixes here and there. I do this comfortably because I have strong skill in several topics and know which ones I can flow in easily while simultaneously composing at a good authorial and editorial standard in real time process.
Other things, like the big market works of major length – a 100,000 words and over, I have done over 200 drafts of.
But those included ‘working out loud’ (because the material is spoken word/storytelling and not for print publication) where the necessary number of voices and voice POV’s had to be identified and perfected so listeners who DL the file and audience members who come to the live show respond to the additional entertainment value of theatricality spoken word/storytelling provides.
The point is understanding and the ‘three E’s’ (education, entertainment and enlightenment) are the goal, and endless rewrites beyond that have more to do with issues with the consciousness utilizing the keyboard than the literary creative production process itself.
It’s like the perpetuation of the myth of writer’s block. It doesn’t exist any more than perfection does (though to show objectivity and fair bias, a writer can produce something so well written – either on the first draft due to inspiration force – or through rewrites because crafting can produce astounding output also) but at a certain point, you must recognize there is nothing wrong with the writing and something problematic with the human at the wheel of the writing faculty.
The great drawback here is that people are actually getting less intelligent in the grasp department. With media and technology reducing perception to sound bytes and short string character length meme bits, people who used to be able to read two or three pages and go aha, now have to be fed the same data in 160 characters or they get tired intellectually because they are using that scale of cognition overwhelmingly.
We’re both old enough to know when people could (from oral tradition to the 1980’s) rattle off verbatim long data strings of pages of text put to heart. Try that today outside of acting or storytelling or professional speaking, and see the difference.
And while it may be true that creators will be the ones who will save the world, I can tell from half a century of writing, performing, directing and producing – an more importantly – observing and digesting my global culture to be better at the former skill sets, nobody I know, have researched or observed but me is really working on that problem in a meaningful and significantly effective way.
Thanks, Art, for sharing such a well thought out and compelling argument. Well done.
I think you are totally right about the knuckle rapping that undermines many a creative type. I also like what you said about the myth of writer’s block. I think the artists that can save the world are simply trying to exist and pay their bills and not be gobbled up by the empire. I have always, however, hoped ‘they’ were out there some where. In my own tiny way, I am trying to do my part.
Thanks for taking the time to respond and for your contribution over the years.
I want to comment that I believe the artists that can save the world who are simply trying to exist and pay their bills aren’t artists who can save the world.
Those are people who are coping, not committing. The artists that can and should save the world will do so despite all factors against them, just like civil rights, women’s rights, voters rights and gay rights had to do.
The artist has become complacent and non responsive trying to cope with the world the way it is, and cope with creativity the way it is perceived, will never understand how they must change and never understand the transformative power of creativity; they will just be incremental progress creators, never truly creative, just creativity tourists.
Who wants a trail of breadcrumbs as a legacy? I can’t live with that? Can you?
The Lone Comic TM
Defender of Creativity and Entertainment SM
Point taken, Art. I will strive to be committed, truly creative, and not just a creativity tourist. A life’s work, for sure.
Can you say more about what you mean by a legacy of a trail of breadcrumbs? What would that look like?
No worries, if you are busy creating and choose not to respond. You’ve said a lot already.
Thanks again.