The Finished Article
The first time somebody called me a perfectionist I found it laughable. Not for any real reason, mind you. I just never saw myself as one, so the thought of it was so foreign as to be absurd.
It happened when I had let several months worth of university assignments pile up even though most of them were near-complete and ‘good enough’ tier.
I’m still not sure why I let things get that bad but something seemed amiss. The same happened when I was relearning Dutch and was deathly afraid of saying something wrong. Things didn't used to be like this. When I was first learning English I made mistakes all the time – I was told in no uncertain terms that that’s the easiest and best way to pick up a language. By trying again and again until you fail less each time. It’s supposedly one of the reasons why it’s easier to learn a language when you’re a kid, because using the wrong gender for a noun or incorrect grammar isn’t something that you’d be afraid of.
Not to get all ‘former gifted child’ about it, but people used to tell me that I was smart when I was a kid. Like, a lot. I spoke four languages and skipped ahead several grades in school. I even made the local news for being such a nerd. One of those cheap feel-good stories about some dweeb that’s supposedly going to do big things but then you never hear from them again. It was probably then that I internalised being seen as ‘smart’ to be a good thing and making mistakes to be a bad thing.
Fast-forward one score and I don’t think it did too much damage. Apart from the crippling anxiety about not getting good grades I suppose. But besides that, I’m pretty mellow. I’ve been described by people in my life as the smartest idiot they know. Smart for knowing sometimes interesting words or trivia, idiotic for being the kind of person who asks if pinecones are considered a fruit.
Have you ever heard of the Japanese concept 侘寂 (wabi-sabi)? It’s the aesthetic design philosophy equivalent of a shrug. Basically, things being imperfect and impermanent is fine. Not everything has to be symetrical or everlasting. Life isn’t. Then why should a building or a flower arrangement be? Those lumpy clay bowls or cups you made when you were a kid? Crappy to the untrained eye, but wabi-sabi masterpieces to any in-the-know patron of the arts. If you ever wondered why it’s impossible to make your house and front path align perfectly in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, now you know.
A while ago I wanted to start a website about boxing. I didn’t know anything about making websites, so I started to learn html and css on w3schools. If you’ve been thinking of trying it out, I highly recommend it. It’s surprisingly straightforward and you can even host your own website for free on NeoCities. But the things I wanted to do were a bit more complex. So I started writing out a long Word document to explain my vision to a freelancer who would do it for me. Only problem was that no matter how much I wrote and elaborated, I couldn’t quite explain it well enough. After months of spinning my wheels, never posting the job, and going nowhere fast, I remembered when someone called me a perfectionist and calmly explained how it was holding me back.
Hi. This is that website. It’s not perfect. And that’s fine. This is the first article and it almost certainly could be better. But with time hopefully the website and my writing will improve. Sometimes I look at old versions of modern websites on the WaybackMachine and they all looked completely different. How they started was tiny compared to how they grew and evolved. Maybe other people can manage it but I’m done trying to start at the finish line. I’ll just make mistakes and look forward to making less of them in the future. Things will be different and eventually better. I want to thank you for being here to see it.