Perfect is the Enemy

Thinking out loud. No pictures here. And the thinking isn't even original.

I'm suffering from information overload again, caught between the desire to cast a wide net and the desire to actually catch anything in the net. I'm starving for my inability to eat fish for need of sorting fish. (I love my convoluted metaphors.)

I finally connected my consumption compulsion (with regards to media/information) with the handful of posts about Barry Schwartz'sParadox of Choice a few minutes ago. I nearly bought the book (yay kindle!), but read the reviews and decided there wouldn't be enough "help" for me in there.

It's a struggle to grok that I won't become who I want to be overnight.

At "lunch" today I said that I don't think in the long term, and that's true. Despite my "complaint" that one of our democracy's difficulties is its inability to make long term plans and decisions, I realize I don't do that on my own either. Perhaps it's a byproduct of moving an average of once a year for the past 8 years, but I can't really map out my future more than a little bit at a time. Gannon (more than a decade older than I) mentioned things he wants to do with his art over the next ten years, and that kind of foresight, that distance of vision, was outside my zone of familiarity.

It shouldn't be, but I won't change this overnight.

As part of that lunchtime discussion I brought up cultural pressure to be an instant success, or at least one that reaches viability and maturity within a couple years. Even though I can't think of life without my creativity, I also can't think of what my creativity will be in ten years. How will it change? Where will I go? What will I reach?

Ach, mea culpa. It's about the journey, not the destination. Even if there is a "there", I won't reach it overnight.

Nothing happens overnight. Even if I can sculpt a reasonable 25.5 year old version of myself in the next few hours or days, I won't make the habits I want to have as soon as I imagine them.

But what are those little change I need to make? How will I find the quiet time for rejuvenating and the spare time for stretching? How will I exchange breadth for depth? How will I always remember that I can't read everything, so it's better read and grok a few things than skim and bookmark many things?

Limit your choices. Limit your choices. Limit your choices.
Good is good enough. Good is good enough.
Output is more importance than input.
Perfect is the enemy.

Pardon my overstating mantras.

It's not a joke that I need to let go of the road not traveled, though, and stop fretting over missed opportunities. (Heehee, there's a story in this somewhere.) Even if I have benefited from obsessive skimming and gleaning, I don't think it's going to bring me a cure from obsessive skimming and gleaning.

Where's my f$*%&($#*&in discipline?!

Another small thing from lunch that I think will help in some way: I had an opportunity to explain, to other and to myself, why I don't do more inked/colored/finished drawings. I like the quantity and physical progress of drawing in a sketchbook and working my way through photo books, a certain satisfaction that doesn't come from digital work, even if I post it online. I need to work out quantities to be printed and posted in my room... or in a dark dark folder never to be seen... to give myself the same feeling of accomplishment and progress. Maybe I can apply that to this other messy instream of info somehow that will maximize my productivity.

Good thing tomorrow's a Monday. The beginning of a workweek is a great time to experiment on myself!