"If you look for perfection, you'll never be content."
-Leo Tolstoy, 1877
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Perfection pervades our society outside of a functioning norm. It's very odd - the idea that something loses value due to a scratch, a bump, a mark that doesn't even affect the functionality of said product.
I do think of this due to my relationship with terracotta pots. I pick them regardless of their blemishes as long as I know it hasn't affected the strength of that pot. You'll see a couple of scratches and bumps, but the pot still holds dirt and doesn't leak. There's so much waste in the world because we strip things of their value as soon as they experience the inevitable parts of life itself.
Often times people will scour the aisles looking for perfection - no bumps no blemishes. I found this out a lot while working in a greenhouse. If the plant had one wrong leaf, one misplaced flower bud, one dead part, it didn't get picked. And that's odd to me considering it doesn't even affect the plant itself. I'd go over and pluck off that yellowing leaf, or that bare branch, and voila - it was gone. What did that really change?
Then I realized truly how much expectations ruin the fun out of things. So often than not we'll push away subjects because the starting expectations are too high. The divide between experience and curiosity widens, then gets forgotten completely. It's shocking the way I, and other people, talk down their creative processes because it isn't "what's expected", but what's really expected from a beginner? When their first creations look bad they throw it away from themselves screeching "TRasH" (ok it me), and "good for your skill level" is an insult, not a simple observation. Or, even worse, they just stay there, either thinking "it can't get better" because they suck or "it can't get better" because it becomes more about ego fulfillment or competition rather than the pursuit of creative knowledge.
Creativity is so important in us all. I deeply encourage you to art, because it's less about being good and more about getting better to the point you can express yourself.
Find your people, or even a person who believes in you healing your own inner child through self expressive creativity. Heck, it doesn't even need to be painting. I know I'm a painter but there's so many forms of art out there that there's something for everybody's unique inner expression. I always seem to have my nose in watching some form of art - painting, drawing, poems, writing, embroidery, word working, carving, crochet, ceramics, graphic designs, antique renewal, glassblowing, metalsmithing, crating, acting, gardening, makeup, or even just people making shapes in their tea! It's infinite! (Curse the internet and its accessibility).
My trusty companion was the artist who rekindled the fire in my soul and made me not only love art again, but believe it was something I could have, conquer, and bloom into to the point I could do anything my mind can think of. That for me was a huge blessing considering the depths of imagination my mind can go to. It's so frustrating to have something in your head, an idea, a creation, or even just a feeling that could be so beautiful, but getting stuck up in the details and the style set and all the self induced limitations that comes from perfection being so ingrained and normalized. It's not frustrating to have in your hand the idea in your mind expressed in a tangible form. Maybe that's where the mind block comes from - wanting to perfectly express the ideas or feelings in your head and feeling frustrated at how different it is rather than seeing how it came out and makes you feel. The more I get past that, the more healthy my relationship with art is, and then in turn I can express outwardly my internal life vibrantly into the world.
You make art? Then you can be an artist, and you can be an artist, and you, and you, and you.
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Hey you! You there!
Whatever art you do,
Be excellent, not perfect!! šāļø