Perfectionism vs. Creativity

“Take pains, be perfect” – so says Bottom, the least able actor in history, who is only able to play the ass when he actually becomes his character. Perfect isn’t a good target, goal or objective for the actor. It does not allow for spontaneity, divergence and diversity. Whilst we strive for a strong, supple and healthy body, perfection will lead us towards Narcissism. Whilst we strive for vocal production that is powerful with resonant tone, perfection will make us compulsive about ourselves. Perfection is not the friend of the creative as it might be for the Accountant. Perfection is a false friend, capable of leading you away from your goals and towards a long long fall. One caused by pride.

Perfectionism is the opposite of creativity. I’m a perfectionist, or at least I was. I was quite proud of it too. I thought perfectionism was something to aspire to. But it’s not. Perfectionism is pride in another form, it’s excessive pride and that’s a form of vanity. When you keep trying to be perfect, you end up failing, and because your goal is perfection, every mistake, every error, every failure is a personal attack upon your quest for perfection. Perfection will eat you from the inside out.

Perfectionism is the idea that something can be right and if you keep going you’ll achieve the right thing. This of course is not true. In many cases, you could work until the end of time and never read perfection, because perfect doesn’t really exist. Flawless sometimes occurs in nature, but it’s innate, it isn’t something one can work towards. It’s a never ending vanity. It’s a self-editing process that kills creativity. It isn’t productive or playful, which is the heart of creativity.

Creativity isn’t about getting it right, it’s about allowing yourself the space to play, to fail, to play again, without considering failure the end of life or the end of your project.   You need to surrender yourself to the experience, and not concern yourself with the end result at the creative stage. It’s okay to have rules or guidelines. In sports they play by rules, but still create wonderful, exciting, tense, fantastic games. The rules prevent pure anarchy, but they don’t hamper creativity.

Perfectionism fears failure, so it pushes against each experience, pushing aside all prospects of inspiration and spontaneity, pushing on its way towards the ‘right’ answer. Perfectionism is the route to dead things, to static and stagnant, to taking the life out of your performance, but more than that, it’s fixation on the wrong things.

For Creativity, you need to trust yourself. You need to explore without fear of failure. You need to accept that failure is an important part of creativity, and then stop seeing it as failure, just another part of creativity. Creativity is a great virtue in your life. It is freedom, it is the capacity and ability to play, the space to explore. Perfectionism is a character flaw – it is a need to be right more than a need to do something well. It is fruitless and in the end,you will be disappointed with your shallow result. Creativity is endless, boundless and the results go on and on and on.

Be creative. Give up perfection.

I’m still learning this, so can you.

-Mark-