Perfect Is The Enemy Of Good

For the past few weeks I have been struggling to write the perfect follow up to my very first blog, “Death Puts Life in Perspective”, but has only resulted in a number of failed attempts and a boat load of personal anxiety.

I started a blog entitled “Which Presidential Candidate Will Save Us?”, then abandoned it because I felt that both energetically and contentually (did I just make up a word?) it was too direct and potentially alienating to the average reader. I just did not think I couldn’t do the subject justice as a blog and still have space to leave the reader with hope.
I mean, how can you make the case that our political landscape and socio-economic trends have come to be insurmountable by any one administration, and, we (all “first-world” citizens) are basically liable due to how we have collectively used our cash, attention and labor for the past 50 years, in 3000 words or less, in a way that’s not construed as caustic? Yikes! Abort, abort.

36 hours of writers block induced depression later I was watching Mr. Bond himself, Bill Gross of PIMCO, the worlds largest (1.3 Trillion dollars) bond trader and hedge-fund manager, explain how America must return to producing more real goods than financial “products”, aka “Paper”.

[Scroll forward to the 6:20 mark]

Seriously, I thought, of all people to be saying this!
Perfect, I’ll do a little blog using Bill Gross’s quotes on how financial “paper” has come to patch the losses of real jobs and mask the loss of our self-determination like paper mache applied to the tears of a slowly collapsing cardboard structure.

I even had a catchy title, “Double Agent Mr. Bond Blows The Whistle”.

A few pages of writing later I realized I had to explain the relationship between the Federal Government and the so-called “Federal Reserve” Central Bank, in order to explain how “bailouts”, “stimulus” and “quantitative easing” worked, in order to punctuate why Mr. Bond himself is worried enough to even mention it.

Then the pangs of anxiety started again. “Crap! What percentage of readers of this blog want to know the minutia of banking, bond markets and what ex-blackjack professionals turned financial speculators think about American culture?”

The blog stopped in its tracks for 2 more days.
At this point I’m starting to have anxiety about the fact that anxiety itself has me unable to commit to publishing anything. Every conversation I have for a few days seems to one way or another to turn to the topic of my writing, or lack thereof.

I talked to my good friend and amazing artist / musician, Trevor, and he reminded me to focus on simply publishing something frequently and not to be too obsessed with content. He politely reminded me that with the amount of free time I have I should be able to put a little out each week easily. Very true bro!

Sometimes it takes straight talk to help snap you out of it.

Then I got a text from another amazing artist friend of mine, Heather, who somehow found a link to my last blog post on Facebook and wanted to encourage me to keep going with my writing. I shared my frustrations with being “stuck” and she simply said “It will come to you”. I usually don’t feel texts poignantly but I knew exactly what she meant. She believes in me. Sweet 🙂

I am always amazed at how the confidence we have in each other effects the confidence we have in ourselves. I instantly felt better.

The same night my good friend, N.L.P. Master, Massage Therapist, Fitness Guru, Closet Sociologist and Author, Sam, called to see if I had finished the “Which Presidential Candidate Will Save Us?” piece. I said no of course and tried to explain myself but he wasn’t buying it. He encourages me to just be bold and make strong statements. He also harasses me about how scant my volume of production is relative to how it needs to be to reach the multitudes.

With Sam I could tell he was disappointed. He spent time helping me get my act together and now I’m bitching out. I went to bed that night a little angry with myself. He was right, I was acting soft.

Next morning I went to visit my hip, yoga goddess, bake master, neuromuscular therapist Mommy in San Diego, and of course, me not being stoked on my writing comes up in a hurry. As I began telling her about it I start to feel guilty inside for even foisting my head trip on her. She asked about the aborted blogs and before I was even done explaining why she was already politely reminding me that any blog I put out will stimulate more conversation on the subject matter than the no blogs I currently posted. That was enough of a nudge to get me to stop talking about “why not.”

I felt clearly now that I was being indulgent by not writing.
Then she hit me with a deja vu sentence that was almost a literal quote my wise grandfather, Alex, used to say when I was having insecurities about a documentary film treatment I had written 3 years earlier (surprise surprise). She said “your letting perfection prevent you from producing a good piece of writing”.

My grandfather would say “Your letting perfect get in the way of good” and then he would remind me that many of the worlds problems stem from the way idealism discounts the utility, or practicality, of well intended effort and goods.

That’s when it hit me. The good advice, patience and confidence I’ve experienced over the past 36 hours is what I really want humanity to experience.

So as the universe often does, it put an exclamation point on the message when I went to visit my action hero Father.

I arrived to him sleeping in his front yard on the grass near his Cairn garden. I did not wake him and sat enjoying the sun in the space he created for himself.

I looked at him, resting peacefully, and the illusive obvious emerged. Duhhhhh. He got to where he was by frequently publishing his ideas. Not perfect or incontrovertial ideas, but solid ideas. Regularly. Period.

While staring at an Orange tree I started thinking of the ways our lack of confidence shapes our culture and environment:
–> How many well meaning people stay in the closet about their passion, skill or hobby because they don’t feel they are comparable to those professionals they see on TV, Print and Movies?

Imagine if people largely compared their looks, skills and thoughts with those in A 200 mile radius around them, and not the entire global talent pool. We’d have many more producers, “makers”, and a much higher average perception of utility and satisfaction in the community.

Much prosperity and talent is lost by comparing ourselves to the best of the best, aka “perfect specimens”.

–> How many people wear themselves down with poor diet and exercise habits and rationalize not changing because they don’t think they can’t “eat perfectly”, “spend all day in a gym” or don’t “want to look like a body builder?”

Most of life’s processes are cumulative and therefore it all matters in the end. One extra bite of fresh food is better than not. One less donut per week is healthier.

–> How many people could be changing the economic landscape by investing in credit unions, community trusts, banks and initiatives but don’t because the risk isn’t perfectly hedged, managed, or the projects are not as high return as the top conglomerate banks offer?

Community level investment is severely choked by chasing maximum returns with minimal time to maturity. This is a huge point for a later post.

–> How many dream of a green economy but don’t turn off lights, or dry clothes on a line, or a ride bike short distances around town, etc. There are plenty of people who can afford an electric vehicle or electric bike but do not because “battery technology will be better later”, “the kits are too expensive”, “It won’t make a difference”, “I don’t like the way it looks”, etc.

With energy use, pollution, and ecology in general, every molecule saved is a molecule earned. There are a hundred ways to reduce inputs and externalities.

If Humanity is to reach cultural maturity  (surely this diesel guzzling culture is not the height of our potential) we will have to become more proud of what we don’t use than what we do.

–> How many people have deep visions and understandings of society, nature and self that barely get articulated or cultivated due to the insecurity of not being able to perfectly explain every detail.

Now that we have globally integrated social networks we  have no excuse for not being able to exchange ideas with like minded individuals. Only Fear.

Just about then my dad woke up and we got to catching up a bit.

For the past couple years it had been a somewhat regular thing to talk about my disappointments in life and my fear about the trends of the world. But this time I did my best to avoid bringing anything up that would draw his mind away from the dreamy, rested head-space he so enjoyed and needed. I feel more strongly than ever that he deserves to have a happy son.

Since I knew I was going to write about something by the end of the week I felt satisfied enough to be more present, more pleasant.

I left my fathers place with that F.D.R feeling.

So there it is, my blog about being an upstart blogger. Not what I predicted I’d write but I’d rather put forth a good effort regularly than live with the nagging feeling of stagnancy and spiritual impotence, that comes from the inhibition caused by not feeling perfect or good enough.

If my dream of being an author, presenter and film producer is ever to become reality I must stop letting perfect get in the way of good.