Thursday! 2-26: Don't Give Me Perfect, Give Me Here.
Volume 2, Issue 26
Jesus once warned about putting new wine in old bottles. I’d like to try the opposite and talk about something I’ve talked about before: perfectionism.
Before I switched Thursday! from Tinyletter to its new home here on Substack, I did a fair bit of research about which platform would best accommodate all the things I wanted to do, not only now but months (or perhaps years) from now. I figured Substack would be the best place.
I was wrong.
Well, okay. Maybe I wasn’t wrong so much as I wasn’t quite right. Substack will help me in a lot of ways, but in a couple of important ways, this platform isn’t what I thought. Over the weekend, I did a fair bit of thinking. Did I want to stick with the switch or did I want to wait a week or two at the old place and move to a better platform, assuming a better one exists? Was there a perfect place I could find, if I waited and searched for just a little bit longer?
I didn’t wait, as you can see, because there is no perfect place. Even the very best platform that fits me and my goals like a slinky black dress* won’t be perfect. I’ll always be able to nitpick today and find a real flaw tomorrow. I can find an excuse to wait, to delay, to research, to ask for advice, to do anything but move ahead and make it sound like a perfectly reasonable explanation. All my excuses sound good, because I’m practiced at making excuses. My educated guess is you have a fair bit of skill in that area as well.
This newsletter is my reply to the nagging questions my perfectionism asks every day. I am here right now with my best effort. Next week, my best effort will be better than this week because I’ll learn and adapt and revise. This newsletter will serve us better as we go along. It’s not perfect, nor will it be perfect next week. That will annoy the heck out of me and, in the times when the low moods come on me, I’ll want to quit.
I won’t, though, because showing up with the best you have is better that sitting at home waiting for the Magic Perfect Fairy to show up with a special delivery. I waited long enough while other people showed up with so-so stories and horrid poetry while I grumbled at the attention they got. I’m showing up with something really good for you and, just maybe, for a whole bunch of other folks who want to be a part of the cool thing we have going here.
That’s me, though. How about you? Do you have that story you’ve wanted to write except the time wasn’t right? Is there a painting that lives only in your head even though you have a blank canvas right there? How about those poems you’ve been meaning to write except you don’t ever seem to “feel like a poet”.
Write it. Paint it. Write them. Do your thing. You’ll worry that it’s not perfect, and that’s okay. Worry, but don’t stop. Let it rip!
Remember that wine thing I mentioned at the beginning? Jesus meant that you shouldn’t try to put your best into an inflexible vessel that can’t handle it. You do that, you get busted bottles and wasted wine. On the other hand, if you put old wine in new bottles, you can be sure the container will hold what you put in it. The risk you run — the risk I run here — is that it might seem as if I’m just doing a “greatest hits” reused newsletter.
I come back to the theme of “do your thing” because it’s important. The only thing in this world that will guarantee your failure as a “creative”** is not making your art. Made art can always be improved, can always find an audience, can always achieve something. Art that lives only in your head isn’t really alive. It is a dream. Dreams aren’t real. They can become real but they require doing.
You know what else isn’t real and won’t ever be real on this mortal Earth? Perfection.
So do your thing. It won’t be perfect but that doesn’t mean it won’t be very good indeed.
*Please don’t try to picture me in a slink black dress. For your own sanity.
**I don’t like the word “creative” when what we really mean is “artist”, but sometimes “artist” gets interpreted as “person who makes visual art”, as opposed to writers or sculptors. I might just keep on using “artist” to mean all those things and we’ll just live with it
What I Wrote Last Week
One Last Thing
If you like what I’m doing here and want to support me, here are three things:
First, share Thursday! with all your most clever and discerning friends.
Second, buy my first book of poetry. It has werewolves and a giant atomic monster!
Third, consider a paid subscription. This is how I’m going to move to professional, fancypants author. Wouldn’t that be cool? (I’ve not made this option available yet because I’m still working on the little technical bits, but it’s coming very soon and I’d like you to jump in when it arrives!)