My "Perfect" Problem

I have struggled with blogging this semester. The goal of these blogs was for us to have a place to write down and share our thoughts as the class went along. I haven’t kept up with my blog very well, and my excuses for not doing so are almost entirely predictable: I’ve mismanaged my time and could not balance my energy adequately between this class and the rest of my classes. In class there was no way not to be fully engaged, and I have you guys to thank for that. Outside of class though, I was pushing myself to give my all to my film project, which in addition to nearly driving me mad (and not the divine kind) stole the focus I would dearly have liked to give to my blog. 

I’m not trying to earn sympathy; I’m sure everyone else in class was in a very similarly stressful situation this semester. However, there is another reason I’ve struggled to blog, and it’s the same reason I’ve struggled so much to make my film project: I have a massive issue with showing people things I’ve made if I am not completely convinced that my creations are of the highest quality I can produce. It’s textbook perfectionism, and now that I think about it, I’m sure I’m not the only one in class struggling with this mentality.

The ideas we discuss in class are all connected, which, of course, is yet another idea we’ve discussed in class. This notion is easily my favorite element of class, but from what I can tell, it’s also been the root of my problems; as soon as I start writing about an idea I have, it rapidly grows to be an attempt to illustrate that all is connected, which for me to do right (at least in my mind) means I have to actually describe how it connects to other ideas, which then drives me to write about those ideas, which then makes me see even more connections, until I’m just sitting there staring at a blank document trying to write about the whole universe.

My final project presentation was my attempt at doing this, at taking all the things I’d been thinking about this semester and put them into one package. My problem wasn’t generating ideas to write about, it was that I couldn’t let myself write about just one idea for the sole foolish reason that these ideas (chaos theory, music, etc) felt incomplete by themselves. And yes, I did just say it feels incomplete to talk about chaos theory and only chaos theory. This is because of a the cruel and hyper critical inner voice that perfectionism creates; I can always find a way to do something better than I first think, but I literally cannot do anything at all unless it is at that idealized “better” level that I have created for myself. It’s my hubris; I am paralyzed by my desire to be a perfect version of myself, unwilling to sign my name on something that isn’t the absolute best I can do. If I must settle for less, that “lesser” version will always be a joke to me, no longer to be taken seriously despite the large amounts of time and effort I put into generating that “lesser” idea in the first place. It is very, very, difficult for me to be good enough for myself.

All this perfectionism seems to stem from self-obsession; I brought up my struggles with vanity in my last post. It is that self-obsession that made me realize this problem of mine could be worth blogging about: is this not a form of referential mania? I am so caught up in my position relative to the rest of the world and our species that I cease to function properly, and I am paralyzed from making the motions that would actually improve my position. 

If I do have a strength worth mentioning, it is that seeing connections comes to me somewhat naturally. It has been fascinating and maddening to see however, that that same strength has been applied to digging myself into a hole for much of this semester. I don’t wish I would have blogged more for the sake of my G.P.A, as that statistic is of immense cosmic inconsequence. I do wish though, that I would have blogged more, that I would have been stronger against my inner critic. I wish I would have been sharing myself with the class in the open way that so many of you have been in your blogs because that is the reason I am alive and the point of this class: to connect, and only connect. The irony that it has been my obsession with connections and with myself that has led me away from allowing myself to fully connect with you all, which may be interesting from a literary standpoint, but it has been a truly tragic realization for me, and one that has taught me a great deal.

Luckily, the rest of you have been fantastic and sharing yourselves, and as a result I feel connected to all of you in a big way. Hopefully my surge of last minute blogging can help balance out our relationship, as I will be trying my best to show you my honest thoughts, not my attempts at “perfect” thoughts.