This essay didn’t end up where I thought it would, but it took me somewhere different than where I started, which to me, at least, is the mark of a pretty damn good piece of writing. Thanks for not not (?) writing the thing!
Oh perfection. Such a dream-killer. I wrestled with it these last few years using the mantra “done is better than perfect.” But I’m now at the place where perfection has resurfaced as “shouldn’t you be better at this by now?”
I had to write new brand messaging for a client this week in their refreshed brand voice and this is exactly what was going through my head! Including Hey Dispshit! At one point I just had to stop. As the Moth says, Done is better than perfect.
Two things: It’s not “chicken shit” it’s “chickenshit.” Second: remember Wallace Stevens’ “The Plain Sense of Things:”
Yet the absence of the imagination had
Itself to be imagined.
Stevens got there by experiencing “the silence of a rat come out to see.” Welcome to the kaleidoscope. Just keep twistin’. Now, if you’ll excuse me… Heading out to Ethiopia.
Whatever this was, I enjoyed it
I liked this, but especially this: "things aren’t the way they used to be so they can become they way they are."
That was my fav too.
This essay didn’t end up where I thought it would, but it took me somewhere different than where I started, which to me, at least, is the mark of a pretty damn good piece of writing. Thanks for not not (?) writing the thing!
thank YOU for reading it
dear alex,
wonderful piece!
i love this: "The right way to write is the one that happened."
it reminds me of something my friend gus shared with me once:
"a laundry list jotted down by a drunken person is more profound than anything Shakespeare or Einstein ever didn’t get around to writing"
thank you for doing what you do! whatever it is!
love
myq
I wasn't going to comment.
Oh perfection. Such a dream-killer. I wrestled with it these last few years using the mantra “done is better than perfect.” But I’m now at the place where perfection has resurfaced as “shouldn’t you be better at this by now?”
Sigh…
I’m going to read this piece of gold every time I sit down to write.
prove it
You are so fucking good at writing about writing!!
this, you must know, is really kind
I had to write new brand messaging for a client this week in their refreshed brand voice and this is exactly what was going through my head! Including Hey Dispshit! At one point I just had to stop. As the Moth says, Done is better than perfect.
Two things: It’s not “chicken shit” it’s “chickenshit.” Second: remember Wallace Stevens’ “The Plain Sense of Things:”
Yet the absence of the imagination had
Itself to be imagined.
Stevens got there by experiencing “the silence of a rat come out to see.” Welcome to the kaleidoscope. Just keep twistin’. Now, if you’ll excuse me… Heading out to Ethiopia.
ethiopia??
This almost got me out of my writing block
almost
Okay at the end of this, all I could see was Natalie Portman’s face at the end of Black Swan when she says, “It was perfect.”
I hope you’re okay and have not impaled yourself with the shards of your dressing room mirror, because this essay was perfect.
hahaha i am okay thank you!
You had me with the Perfection photo.
hahaha
That Perfection game is why I now have anxiety as an adult 😩
Absolutely love this piece. The inner critic monologue losing its way - or something like that.
did you mean "Beefheart" ? 🤣