Perfect is the enemy of good. -Voltaire
My perfectionism tells me that I don’t want to finalize and send a text the same day I write it. I have long figured out a system where I am good at proofreading my own texts, I just have to set aside my writing for a few days and then I can come back to it with some distance to edit with fresh eyes. I wrote a text that I liked, but because of my system I thought of it as a draft. I sent the drafted text to my thinking partners with the assumption that I would want to add to it, edit it, and “perfect” it after a few days. “Write drunk, edit sober”, Hemingway said. But one of my thinking partners shared it in our philosophical practice theory chat and on social media as is. In its unfinished, raw, imperfect form—the horror! Instead of reacting in my instinct to be displeased, I examined why my instinct was to be guarded with my ideas instead of freely giving. I realized that I allow my energy for a topic to fizzle and my interest to become dulled by this ruminating habit.
I chew the cud instead of seize the day.
Pursuing perfection creates an obstacle to act when I can act, to share when the topic is ready to breathe, and to dialogue when others might be interested in sharing perspectives. I could capitalize on the moment, even if group chats are busy with other topics, even if I might want to expand parts of the text later, even if I haven’t proofread. I learned from the experience that I am holding myself back by being too calculating. So I challenge myself to write more in the moment, and send it out into the world while the passion is inflamed, warts and all.
Mercedes: I like the idea of feeling the vertigo of launching something imperfect into the world. But the experience of rereading what was written several days later and entering into a dialogue with oneself is also a joyful experience, not necessarily linked to perfection but to deepening.
In philosophical practice we play with a dimension of dialogue that can be the background of the written text: In philosophical practice we have a first movement of the spirit that could be showing its immediacy and a work of deepening and purification is carried out on it. We finally have a clearer product. And this product is the one that could be the written text that you show to the world. The text has its moment of cooking and its moment of putting it on the plate. If we can call it perfect, it is not so much in the sense of maniac but in the sense that you offer something cooked, elaborated.
That brings me to an interesting question.
What decides that the elaboration of something becomes maniac?
Me: Good question. Your comments show me I shouldn’t discard my process, but that I have become unhealthy with my process.
If I have more than a few texts waiting to be finished, just like having too many tabs open in a web browser, I feel overwhelmed. It becomes maniac when the overwhelming feeling gets in the way of the joy of creating and sharing. This practically looks like me telling myself that my teaching schedule is too busy for writing time, I am temperamental with people around me, and my dialogue contributions are short.
Christo: That's interesting that your thinking partner thinks it's perfect and you don't. When is a text perfect to you?
Me: Perfection doesn’t exist. So if perfection doesn’t exist, when am I satisfied with publishing a text? Actually, I go back and tweak already published texts a few times when I am in an obsessive mood, so even then I am not happy with saying it is finished. If I learned to give birth to the child and send it out into the world to live its own life, I could move onto the next text and be focused on creating instead of editing, thinking instead of obsessing.