the opposite of alive

in the grip of perfectionism

I’ve been heading to the woods a lot. There’s a particular spot that Paúl and I found a few summers back. It’s a dirt path that parallels the river, just off of the North Branch Trail.

Every time I come here, I feel a shift in my body. It happens almost immediately. I park the car, walk a paved path for several yards and then veer left. Here the trail becomes enveloped by trees. The hum of cars subsides. The grating of everydayness breaks. I take a breath, as if it’s the first one in weeks.

Perfectionism has been rearing its head lately.

I used to wear it like a badge. I thought it spoke to my tenacity and care of craft; that it was one of my better qualities.

Then in my late 20’s, that bubble burst.

Virgil Abloh was the first to do it. At the time I was obsessed with his story. The under dog come up; right place, right time. One day, I heard him talk about perfectionism on a panel.

“When I look at everyone’s creative process, the most successful ones are the ones that create and move on, create and move on. And the most unsuccessful are the ones that work until it’s perfect, because it’s never perfect.”

I felt the truth reverberate through me.

I’d always done the latter, at least since art school. I remember one of my professors being frustrated with me because I hadn’t shown her anything in weeks. Then one day, I came to class with a fully fleshed out project. She was perplexed, but impressed. I felt pride in that moment. I had pulled it off again.

Elizabeth Gilbert shattered things further. In Big Magic, she talks about how perfectionism is just a fancy word for fear.

“Underneath the shiny veneer, perfectionism is nothing more than a deep existential angst that says, again and again, I am not good enough and I will never be good enough.”

And then this banger:

“The most evil trick about perfectionism, is that it disguises itself as a virtue.”

I fell hard for that one. I had conflated perfectionism with being good. Maybe they were always a package deal - part of that Protestant work ethic still championed by our culture. Perfection, the ultimate ascension.

What would it mean to no longer strive to be good? What if I just was? Is there something in trying to be good that actually makes you “bad”, taints your intent? Does feeling like a good person feel as good as being yourself? Does that feel free? Am I a “better” person when I’m not preoccupied with trying to be good?

Perfectionism made sense within the bounds of my art practice. It confirmed why I rarely “shipped” work and iterated on the same piece for ages.

Turns out, it’s much more insidious. It’s in every corner of my life.

It dictates how I move through the world. It shows up as avoidance - unreplied emails and texts; phone calls I never make. It shows up as indecision - not making the move or making too many moves.

Perfectionism is my unconscious attempt to control outcomes & perceptions; to avoid uncertainty at best and rejection at worst.

Anne Lamott writes in Bird by Bird,

“Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor.”

Time slows every time I read this. Instant relief. Recalibration. This isn’t a me problem. It’s in the very bones of the system.

Our culture thrives on perfectionism. We are not privy to process. The parts of the whole have been isolated and fragmented. Our supply chains are mysterious. To look behind this curtain is to be brought to our knees.

Anne Lamott later continues:

“Perfectionism means that you try desperately not to leave so much mess to clean up. But clutter and mess show us that life is being lived. Clutter is wonderfully fertile ground. Tidiness suggests that something is as good as it’s going to get. Tidiness makes me think of held breath.”

I think this is why I’ve been coming to the woods; to stop holding my breath.

Each time, I return to the same spot and watch life be lived a thousand different ways. Perfectionism is the opposite of aliveness. It’s not death either. There is so much fecundity in death. Perfection is void of life, sterile.

The woods remind me that I’m part of the whole. I am not separate from the messy, unpredictable, nonlinear. I am of it. This is where real certainty lies.

It is found in the living.

I want to feel alive more than I want to be good.