PERFECTION IS THE ASSASSIN OF CREATIVITY
Why do so many Artists need a permission slip to create? Not just Artists, anyone who feels they can’t do the thing they want to do for one reason or another, something is in the way or holding them back. That is, until someone or something gives them a permission slip to do that thing. Then suddenly the fog clears and the goal in mind is more accessible than ever before. Call it a coincidence that I have just started to read the Artist Way again and Julia Cameron talks of this exact thing in the introduction.
Is it a collective remanence of our parents or authoritarian figures? What do you mean this one conversation just changed my whole outlook on my next steps? Why didn’t I just do it anyway? Nothing has changed other than the permission verbally and often unknowingly handed to me by another person. Why do we so often listen to others but will ignore the voice that may know us best?
I find it interesting how I will encourage so many to take the leap but often will forget to encourage myself to take the leap that I truly need to take. I care a lot about things being correct. I know I am a chaotic person but I still strive for things to be the opposite of that a lot of the time, to keep hold of the reigns and be organised. I look at my planner and as much as I try to keep it tidy and colour coded, it looks messy and scribbled; But this is the sign that life is being lived.
I came to a breakthrough within my music last week after being emotional from the commitments of life. My body cries from frustration and from stagnation, but usually it is subconsciously formed from me, by barriers that I in fact create. No matter how many demos I produce solo there is still that giant gap, that in-between phase of writing and loving a song to then comparing schedules, going to the studio, spending many sessions working on it ready to release and by then it’s been months and months. At this stage, it is no longer sustainable for me to do it that way. I share online to those who seek some demos I’ve been working on and I love them, but inside my head I question if they are up to scratch of what I have been releasing as the quality industry standard songs?
After my permission slip was handed to me in a conversation with my partner who is also my collaborator, the barrier shifted and…actually I can just work on those and release them myself…. why not? Who is stopping me? What is stopping me? The fear of it not being perfect as I am still learning as a producer. The fear of actually being extremely vulnerable as an Artist sharing music that I have made solo. A weight felt lifted and the next day I started receiving downloads about visuals for a song I had only written half of but I was filled with the confidence that I could finish and release it, even though I made it at home and I am still learning my way around music production. I know they say that perfectionism is creativity’s killer, but actually it is her assassin. Passionately assigned to destroy her entirely, ruin her life with self-doubt, second guessing and delay. But when it’s clocked off the job then Creativity is free to do what she does best. We just need to find out who is hiring Perfectionism…
I have been working towards and dreaming of releasing a mixtape for so long, a body of work I can explore rather than shoving singles out and wanting to move onto the next one. I want to swim in the Art, not just allow it to get swallowed up by the modern-day algorithm. I kind of shelved the idea for the mixtape and thought maybe I should move onto the EP which is higher end production value, but it is the same cycle over and over. I have to break free from it, from the waiting and yearning. Despite all I do to move things along, if you handover control to the fates of others or The Matrix, you lose all your autonomy as an Artist, which is actually what I have now just realised is what that is. Artistic autonomy. On one hand limited budgets and schedules being the worst enemy that cause so much distress, but on the other… are they not the serious friends that actually get you to do your best work in the end.
It is so often said but I am here to remind you to do the thing, even if you aren’t ready. This could be the thing that opens the door to so much more.