I'm just going to write things in the easiest way possible. No backspace (unless a word is misspelled). No over thinking over sentence construction. No nothing. Because when I think to much, I write nothing. Or so I have learned. But then I wonder about ideas and ways to best convey them. And try to figure out the best way to bring them without over thinking stuff. And I think it is nearly impossible to actually convey an idea without thinking them through (over and over again) in the first place. But as far as this one paragraph goes, I have succeeded. I hope you got the idea.
Times are good when you don't think too much, you see.
Effortless efforts. I seem to have lost that drive.
4 Comments:
You might or might not profit from reading this. I still want to share it with you because it helped me!
(Translation/paraphrase mine, from "Creatividad Literaria y Perfeccionismo" by Ricardo Peter)
Perfectionism is that permanent and inflexible pattern of internally experiencing "inadequacy", which generates (as a response to the feeling of being inadequate) a need for structure.
Due to the profound need to structure--to fill life with cement; to organize and control one's existence, experiences, mental world, thoughts, feelings and interpersonal relationships--the perfectionist walks on a road excessively rational, detrimental to any shadow of creativity.
The anxiety of doing things well paralyzes the creative process, a process born from intuition. But an intuition watched by the fear of failure is a rejected intuition. Controlled, silenced, repressed.
Creating is not a conscious act. The creative man (woman) is a medium, an enchanter of ordinary reality, an inspirer of the unpredictable, a magician that takes out a poem, a dissertation project, the draft of a novel, the sketch of a design, from a place where there was nothing. The excessive use of reason, typical to western culture, the exaggerated tendency to analysis and logic, not only breaks intuition but also breaks the common sense that is meant to protect us from grand expectations and "musts".
Perfectionism discourages change and generates resistance to the innovative and unpredictable situations that distinguish anything creative. It is heartbreaking for anyone who wishes to complete a task but remains indecisive for fear of failure; heartbreaking for he who wishes to begin a literary production but never writes for fear of it not being "good enough".
Continuos worry, disappointment and insatisfaction don't make us any more productive, they only make us barren. In order to move out of perfectionism into creativity we must place ourselves in the perspective of imperfection. We must embrace our right to be limited and flawed.
In order to reduce self-criticism, Imperfection Therapy proposes two tools: inclusion of limit and awareness of limit. Gladly, success is inseparable from failure. "Gladly", because it is failure, and not success, the wisest teacher of all.
Spot on, coty. Right to the core of my excessively self-conscious--hence unproductive--creative side of the brain. Thank you, for going through all the trouble translating that! Much obliged. I miss talking to you! (should probably do that soon. not sure if you're ready for my depressed rants though haha)
Hey no problem! I was just now talking to a friend about this whole creativity thing + morality. I tend to come up with pretty gruesome ideas, or at least creepy and taboo ones, because since I have lots of nightmares I expand on them during waking-time to take advantage of all the drama my subconscious gives me. But then of course all ideas stay locked inside my little head, since my superego/religious morality tells me that writing about homosexuality, suicide or murder, abuse, etc. is straight up wrong. Do you ever struggle with this? If you do, how do handle it? :)
wow, I guess I’ve never really struggled in the way that you described—never actually thought of it until you mentioned it. What i’m struggling with is more of a lack of confidence in the ideas that I have. This self-consciousness sort of blocks the flow of my creative juice into the brain, much like is explained in your first comment. Haha.
But I would probably go ahead and write about them, since not writing about it does not necessarily stop the ideas from developing inside your head anyway. Unless you cut yourself completely disconnected from the source where these thoughts are coming from.
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