The fruitless pursuit of perfection
May it die a horrible fucking death
Dear Writer,
I remember the day I lost my shot at being a perfect mother. It was pretty early on with my first kid. I don’t remember the specifics of the situation, I just remember that I had gotten something wrong, and I remember my own devastation at the thought, I will never be a perfect parent now.
It’s such a weird thought to have, but I had it. And from that day forward, I knew that no matter how good I was, I had lost my shot at being perfect.
Fast forward mumble-mumble years, and I’m sitting on my friend’s sofa with her as she breastfeeds her first kid. The baby is mere months old and as we’re talking, I start talking about that moment when I lost perfect as an option and how upset I’d been.
“So weird,” I say to this friend. “Because perfection isn’t even real.”
And until I said that, in that moment, that thought—that perfection wasn’t even real—had never occurred to me, but the truth of it was like a punch in the brain.
I mean, think about it. What even is perfect? Is it doing something so well that no one can possibly criticize your choices or actions?
Take another look at that last sentence; doing something so well that no one can possibly criticize your choices or actions?
I mean… come on. That’s not real. No matter what you do or how well you do it, some asshole is going to be like, “Ugh, you suck, whatever.” But that’s the standard we put ourselves up against in parenting, writing… existing.
Right? Let’s talk about our asses for a moment, because there is no human on the planet that I’ve gotten even moderately close to who hasn’t eventually complained to me about their ass.
It’s either too big or too small. Too round or too flat. Too puckered. Too tooty. Whatever. Every single person I’ve even gotten moderately close to has eventually revealed that they hate their ass. The only thing that varies are the specific reasons why we hate our asses. Because it’s usually out of our view, and when we take the time to finally look at it, it’s way different from what we thought it was, or what it had been the last time we looked. Because we heard someone talking about a sexy ass with qualities that our ass doesn’t have, so therefore by the transitive power of bullshit, our ass is now inadequate. Because it makes embarrassing noises and smells from time to time, and we are convinced that our ass is the ONLY ASS THAT DOES THIS.
Which, darling, it is not.
Regardless of the reasons why you don’t like your ass, I can tell you this: It’s because your ass, like everyone else’s ass, is not perfect.
Except, baby… it is. Your ass is just as perfect as it is not-perfect because perfect isn’t real.
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Don’t believe me? All right. Let’s dig into this.
Okay, so… let’s start with definition #1 with regard to your ass.
“Being entirely without fault or defect.” So if your ass is too big or too small or too round or too flat or too whatever you decide it’s too, then answer me this… according to whom? Who decides the absolute standard for the perfect ass? At what point is your ass beyond criticism or complaint by everyone?
Never. That’s when. It is never beyond criticism or complaint because no matter what your ass looks like, some people think it’s great and some people think it’s too… whatever.
Let’s run down the list of definitions, though. Next up is “satisfying all requirements.” What are the requirements that you have of your ass? What are the requirements that other people have of your ass? When did your ass suddenly take on the requirements of other people? How does that even make sense? What are we even talking about?
Next! “Corresponding to an ideal standard or abstract concept.” Once again, whose ideal? Also… abstract concept? What the…? Why am I required to have my ass perfectly meet the requirements of the abstract fucking concept of ass? When did that happen?
Oh. The 80s. Yeah. Lots of bad shit happened then, no pun intended.
“Faithfully reproducing the original” and “legally valid” are specific enough that I’ll allow them, but they are also specific to reproduction and legality, which means that there are definitions of perfection in those contexts that might have meaning, but outside of that…
Perfect doesn’t mean anything.
It is not real. Holding up a constantly shifting standard of perfection to anything we do or anything we are is a recipe for needless frustration and anxiety, and I’m not just talking about your/my ass… although that was fun.
I’m talking about our writing. Our work. Our creative output.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting your work to be good, but the funny thing about that is that the only path to good work is through bad work. If you’re not willing to do bad work, you will never do truly good work. And once you get to the point where you have done enough bad work to be doing good work, your taste will always exceed your skill, because as you grow in skill so does your taste. If your reach isn't exceeding your grasp, you’re probably not paying attention.
So if there is any part of you that is holding onto this idea of perfection in your work, let it go. Now. Enjoy the doing of the work. Some people are going to love it, and some people are going to hate it. Neither of those responses has anything to do with it being good enough.
It is always good enough.
As are you. So get writing.
And I will, too.
Everything,
L