anti-bog

i get it some days better than others. perfectionism is the ultimate constipation of one's creative digestive system. how many times have i sat down in front of this keyboard, or the one next to me, or the one at work, or the one at my parents' house, and...

well..

just looked at stuff. tried to come up with some way to articulate in an intricate, daresay witty fashion to express.. something. something i saw, some things i thought, some thing i was questioning the nature of.. i don't know.. see, even here it's not coming out just right. but then that time, I went back, started googling something and went back to browsing other blogs.

the same phenomenon can happen with other projects. sewing things- the thought crosses and you see something better.. and yours doesn't get the chance to co-exist in the material realm. that is what this blog thing was supposed to alleviate.. so easy to do that you could do it well, or do it not-well and then undo it and do it well the second time. but the struggle for perfect or fair or good enough is paralyzing.

some people never have this issue it seems. ap is perfectionist too, but doesn't get caught up before his hands are dirty and the place is covered in plaster and the paint is flying and he's within reach of the perfect goal. by that time, the perfection is dimensionalized in its own universe, and the focus is on the piece at hand, not how it stacks up against some irrelevant random other.

the advent of the digital camera has been therapeutic in this sense. snap snap snap, adjust, snap, view, snap snap delete, re-snap. it's so liberating, because you just shoot.

i guess writing is the same way. .just do. then look after.

so here it'll be. the list of Projects Which Should Be Built Without Regard For Perfection Prior to Commencement:

1. the lamp project
2. a study of driftwood: substance and colour (in the absence of form)
3. bran muffins (with and without raisins)
4. hand-sewn sling purse
5. big-ass painting #X
6. black bead necklace (get the string already)
7. the (brown) couch project
8. b&w twig quartet print
9. prints of mich in bc
10. images to oma
11. progress on pixel garden
12. weekly blog entries... ... ...?

I will report back on these, if only for my own sanity. Hereby to be referred to as the Anti-Bog Dozen.

Check it.