Make Yourself an Imperfectionist

When I look back on my creative life so far, I recognize a force that has always dogged me, nipping at my heels for as long as I can remember: perfectionism. Perfectionism is persistent and pernicious. It is especially dangerous for the amateur artist because it perverts the love that drives a creator into the idolization that stifles them. In other words, it keeps one from seeing how made things may be because it fixates on the resonant, awe-inspiring qualities of made things that already are. It smothers the spark of an idea under the shadow of an ideal. Perfectionism breeds impostor syndrome: it whispers to the artist that they and their work will never be good enough, beautiful enough, wise enough to reach their full potential. It tells them they don't deserve to call themself an artist, to waste time on childish, imaginative games.

The idea of perfection is dreadfully alluring. How could people, with all their flaws, living in a flawed world, not yearn for something flawless? This yearning for perfection is pervasive in American culture. We strive to achieve perfection for even a moment, so much so that marketing speak is replete with promises of perfection: the perfect gift, the perfect getaway, the perfect addition to your morning routine. On a more sinister note, the idea of perfection is a tool for propaganda, reified in the notion of purity--racial, sexual, spiritual, or otherwise. Thus certain groups and individuals idealize themselves by devaluing others, trying to achieve some sort of bastard perfection by enumerating the imperfections of others (which, conveniently, they define to not include themselves). In other words, the very idea of perfection is hierarchical and exclusionary.

So what is the recovering perfectionist artist concerned with inclusion and equality to do? Make yourself an imperfectionist. Revel in the messy, chaotic, exploration of half-formed ideas, riding them as far as they take you without beating them like a dead horse because they didn't get you to where you thought you wanted to go (which, by the way, doesn't really exist: it's just a trick played by your imagination's dark side). Let yourself make mistakes and learn from them. And keep in mind, you're not learning how to avoid mistakes; you're learning how to ask questions about them, how to be curious about why mistakes happen the way they do. You might learn artistic techniques from masters (both dead and living), but there are certain things about your process that can only be learned by engaging with it, by following the light inside you to the places where it shines the brightest and basking in it as long as you can.