The Problem with Perfection

Yesterday I talked about how perfection in a created work is an impossibility. Today I am looking at what I consider to be the three problems with this myth known as perfection. The first problem is the recourse to starting over from scratch, the second the temptation to tinker and thirdly is the false expectation of adulation. These are really problems tied to beginnings, middles and ends respectively.

At the start of any project, the possibilities are ripe with potential. Any idea seems like it could have a place, any structure could work. There is no reality to get in the way of creativity. There is no practicality to get in the way of imagination. This is the part of a project where everything always goes right. Because there is as of yet no thing, there is nothing that can go wrong. Having complete creative freedom and the experience of everything going smoothly is an absolutely wonderful feeling. Beginnings are easy to master, and very desirable to repeat. Any time something doesn’t work down the line of a project, it is very tempting to toss the lot and go back to the time when everything was perfect; the beginning. This is the first problem with the expectation of perfection. The only time when everything can be perfect is when we have nothing, so it’s very tempting to continue having nothing for as long as possible.

But being creative means at some point creating something. I sometimes wish I was merely someone who liked having ideas but what I feel driven to do is create. At some point I need to put pen to paper or cursor to screen and start creating content. And at some point, something is going to go wrong. Two pieces of what I am creating are going to work in isolation, but there will be something missing when I try to mesh them.

If I resist the temptation to throw out my work, to assume that I could have created flawlessly, then I need to face the reality of a current imperfection. But because I can see the imperfection, I know I can fix it. I may not know how, but as long as I’m resolved to make it work, I know I can find a way. This is really what the meat of the creative process is. Creating many individual parts and pounding them together into some greater shape. This is the middle, and it can go on for a long time. In fact, it can go on forever.

For a work to be finished all the pieces need to exist and they need to all fit together. Preferably, they need to fit together as close to perfectly as possible. Because I am intimately involved with my creation, I will always know its flaws. A piece may not be structured so that it fits perfectly into the space I’ve provided. Two ideas may not flow correctly into one another. I may be inspired by a new piece that could solve many problems in the work and add only a few new ones. And I will also continuously be finding new problems, new places where my work is not quite perfect.

Because the middle of a work is all about finding the problems with it and fixing them, it is very important for the creator to develop skills in this area. It is very important for the creator to believe that any problem they can find can be fixed. If we did not believe this we would throw our work out to start again, to try to create once without needing to recourse to cleanup. But because we believe fix thing and because we always can see mistakes, we know that a work is never done as well as we could do it, given just a little more time.

This is the second problem with perfection. During the middle of a project, we can always get just a little closer to perfection. And as long as we are trying to get closer to this goal, we will never be done. So how do we finish? How do we actually manage to make something that we can release to the wilds of the world, knowing that there was just a few more things to fix to make it the creation in our dreams? I think there are really three ways.

In the professional world of people being paid to create, the way that projects get finished is through externally imposed deadlines. At some point, the people paying for your work come along and take it away from you whether or not you think it is finished. You need to step back, throw up your hands and say “I did my best”. Even here, it’s not unknown for creations to be late. The creator is unwilling to let go so early. They can see all the flaws and they can point them out to the publisher and make convincing arguments for how they can all be fixed. But still, at some point, the publisher or the customer will demand something that the creator is willing (though perhaps only through gritted teeth) to call finished. Or the publisher may just stop paying for it and the creator will be out of work. Given this choice, most creators will be willing to let go of their still imperfect children.

The second way that creators finish work is through delusion. In the face of being unwilling to release something imperfect and feeling the need to finish it is possible to ignore the truth of imperfection. In a desperate attempt to get something out into the world, a creator may create a temporary insanity in themselves and decide that what they’ve done is, in fact, perfect. That any flaws are merely figments of their imaginations because they are ‘too close to the work’. That finally, they may release their masterpiece out into the world. This is a feeling of absolute jubilation. And it is this joyous liberation which is the third problem with perfection.

If I believe that something I’ve created is perfect and I show it to others under this assumption, then my expectation is that they, to, should see the beauty of my perfection. And if they fail to shower me with adulation, then there is obviously something wrong with them. As more and more people do not express complete amazement, I begin to feel disappointed. Some people may even point out flaws. Depending on how honest I am with myself, I will either continue to assume no-one else in the world knows what they are talking about, or admit that I was deceiving myself. In either case, it is likely that I will decide to stop creating, either because the world is not ready for my genius, or because the revelation that I am in truth imperfect and that I was lying to myself is such a huge crash that I decide the risk of this disappointment isn’t worth future exposure. This is why I stopped writing poetry for many years.

However, if one is willing to admit that perfection is impossible, then all three of these problems of perfection can be avoided. It can be hard, and finding a balance between striving for perfection and being willing to never succeed is draining, but in the end, if you want to finish your creations, this is a hurdle that must be overcome. But I still haven’t said how to finish things without an external deadline and without delusion. I did say there were three ways, and it is necessary to finish if we are going to call ourselves creators.

The third way of finishing is actually fairly obvious. It’s the internally imposed deadline and it’s very hard to achieve. You need a lot of discipline to be able to accomplish this. I’ve been making computer games for over a decade, and I’ve only finished one through an internally imposed deadline (and a very small one at that). I know a lot of people who claim they can’t do this whatsoever, and that’s why they work for other people rather than for themselves. But I believe it is a skill that can be learned. All you need is practice. Practice such as committing to writing a blog every day and seeing how long you can keep going. I hope.