Perfectionism
When nothing seems good enough
This has been an interesting week creatively, I’ve been stuck in almost a tug-of-war between creation and perfectionism. I have been trying to write this article (or whatever would be this week’s substack article) and I’ve been working on this board game concept. With the game, it feels like it is coming along quite nicely, almost like I am in a flow. In less than 10 days from the conception, I’d be able to playtest it, and that is probably the fastest I have ever gone from concept to prototype for any of my projects, and its been interesting.
I’d been spending time for the last couple of months trying to plan my 2025 to be very productive, to have a lot of creative projects and to not just make, but also publish many things. This substack is a part of that same exercise. If I were to divide the creative process into ideation, drafting/prototyping, editing, and publishing, I personally feel like there is a region somewhere in between when I feel stuck. When it starts feeling like whatever I am making is worthless. That it doesn't have the soul or the idea doesn't have the strength, or that nothing I have to say is unique or special.
Whenever this problem happens, I find myself just spending my time trying to perfect the first draft. To draw the perfect lines. There is “feeling” of it not being good enough that my mind tries to solve by figuring out a “perfect” thing. It happened with today’s article also. I wrote 5 different drafts. Everything from “What is art” to “What is worth reading?” And none of them felt like they had the “it”. That thing that would be this feeling of not good enough go away.
As I write this sixth draft, I still dont know if this one will have the “it”. It’s a hard feeling when you know you have the idea at the proverbial tip of the tongue. Obviously there is something in the idea that is the spark that made me sit down and start writing this particular thing. But sometimes it feels like it is like pulling teeth, trying to draw these words out of myself. Like mining a ton of rock and sand to find a speck of gold. And whenever I want to run away from the writing, I go back to the game, where I am not trying to be perfect, and the ideas (and output) are just flowing.
This week, I feel like some amount of creative fear took over me whenever I sat down to write about things. Even though I know a consistent output at a decent quality is way more valuable to me as a creative than brilliant quality output that shows up once in a blue moon, and still why would people read something I am writing, and do I have anything useful to say? I could go and talk about things that are far less authentic or real, things that would mostly engage my cognitive brain only, but I know I wanted to face this thing, whatever it is more closely, more real-ly.
So this is what I am sharing today, a “my headspace right now” kind of update, and just general thoughts on perfectionism. I honestly don’t know if this article is in fact good enough, but I know it will have to do.
So back to the game concept, while I was evading and perfectioning my way through this article writing, the game actually came much more easily to me. I got the basic concept last Friday, and by the Tuesday I had already setup time for my playtesting (over the coming weekend). This dichotomy actually has been making me think why is it that I am gripped by perfectionism here in the writing, but not for my game, and I think I have an answer to that. It is always after I have received some positive feedback that perfectionism starts coming over to stay. The temptation is to recreate the positive feelings of appreciation and avoid the feelings of rejection, the first time I created the substack article, it was because I wanted to write, and expressing my thoughts felt meaningful, and this time my mind went into “writing because people are reading”.
It doesn’t even need to be many people, a few people whose opinion I respect or value is all it takes. Because now my mind has a specific person whose approval it can seek, and that is such a rough challenge to try to climb against. It almost feels like a snowball rolling down the hill and taking all my creative confidence with it.
It’s an interesting dilemma, its not like I don’t want people to read when I am writing to express, but it feels harder to express when I am worrying about how it would be perceived. And this has left me pondering how often I stop my creative projects, or even smaller things that are more an expression of me like how often I stop myself from telling stories or jokes because I am worried about how I am being perceived.
It also makes me think about this conversation I had with Pradeep about success and what happens after success in our recent podcast episode, and how the locus of control can shift overtime from external to internal as you age and mature. Maybe not because you know whats the best, that is probably something one turns more and more uncertain about, but you can know what works for you with greater clarity.
So here I am, trying to share something that feels true to me, and trying really really hard not to worry about whether it will resonate with others or it wouldn’t, still in a tug-of-war, but trying to accept that thats what the creative process for me looks like sometimes.
What have I been upto otherwise
Finished playing Monument valley 3 which was more beautiful than its predecessors, and I like the climate messaging, but it was a disappointment. They completely missed the boat (haha) on what made the originals so wonderful.
Been reading The myth of normal which is an interesting view on what our medical system thinks of as “normal”
And been planning a trip to Singapore in the coming year. Exciting stuff.