the ladder — a blogborygmus
I invented the word “blogborygmus”
in order to combat perfectionism.
Inspired by the real word “borborygmus” — rumbling of the stomach –, a blogborygmus is a mix of doodles and words that I most often scribble before falling asleep at night, the result of which usually goes straight to the garbage the next morning.
But having recently become a born-again-bum, I’ve decided to let go of my Inner Critic and post my late night rumblings of the mind — my brain gas — on my blogs, both English and French, for all to see.
Thus, I created the new blog post category: blogborygmi (plural of blogborygmus). The first brain gas to have honoured this category was oh what a beautiful day!
The above blogborygmus oozed out of me last Friday.
I call it the ladder.
Duh.
Cerebration is the enemy of
originality in art.
Martin Ritt
In her book The Artist’s Way — A Course in Discovering and Recovering Your Creative Self — this is what Julia Cameron has to say about perfectionism:
Perfectionism has nothing to do with getting it right. It has nothing to do with fixing things. It has nothing to do with standards. Perfectionism is a refusal to let yourself move ahead. It is a loop — an obsessive, debilitating closed system that causes you to get stuck in the details of what you are writing or painting or making and to lose sight of the whole.
Instead of creating freely and allowing errors to reveal themselves later as insights, we often get mired in getting the details right. We correct our originality into a uniformity that lacks passion and spontaneity. “Do not fear mistakes,” Miles Davis told us. “There are none.”
The perfectionist fixes one line of a poem over and over — until no lines are right. The perfectionist redraws the chin line on a portrait until the paper tears. The perfectionist writes so many versions of scene one that she never gets to the rest of the play. The perfectionist writes, paints, creates with one eye on her audience. Instead of enjoying the process, the perfectionist is constantly grading the results.
The perfectionist has married the logic side of the brain. The critic reigns supreme in the perfectionist’s creative household. A brilliant descriptive prose passage is critiqued with a white-glove approach: “Mmm. What about this comma? Is this how you spell…?”
For the perfectionist, there are no first drafts, rough sketches, warm-up exercises. Every draft is meant to be final, perfect, set in stone.
Midway through a project, the perfectionist decides to read it all over, outiline it, see where it’s going.
And where is it going?
Nowhere, very fast.The perfectionist is never satisfied. The perfectionist never says, “This is pretty good. I think I’ll just keep going.”
To the perfectionist, there is always room for improvement. The perfectionist calls this humility. In reality, it is egotism. It is pride that makes us want to write a perfect script, paint a perfect painting, perform a perfect audition monologue.
Perfectionism is not a quest of the best. It is a pursuit of the worst in ourselves, the part that tells us that nothing we do will ever be good enough — that we should try again.
No. We should not.
“A painting is never finished. It simply stops in interesting places,” said Paul Gardner. A book is never finished. But at a certain point you stop writing it and go on to the next thing. A film is never cut perfectly, but at a certain point you let go and call it done. That is a normal part of creativity — letting go. We always do the best that we can by the light we have to see by.
Now, this doesn’t mean I’ll strive for the lowest trash. No. But posting my blogborygmi will help me let go of “trying” and get me used to just “doing.” And who knows… I may even discover subconscious messages in my brain gas emissions.
How about you?
Are you possessed by
the perfectionist devil?
Marilyn says:
That’s what I am dealing with right now in my paintings. Maybe not exactly perfectionism, but certainly control over the outcome. I have to keep reminding myself that if this one doesn’t work right for where I wanted it, I can use it some other way, somewhere else. Have to stop trying to make it “right” and just let it flow! Not always easy.
December 18, 2008 at 10:10 pm
OzaMeilleur says:
Hey Marilyn!
I think that’s why artists drink or take drugs. Because when you’re high, everything’s right, right? Everything flllllllows.
Don’t bogart that joint, my friend — la la la — pass it over to me…
So what have you been paintin’?
xoxo
December 19, 2008 at 1:25 am
Gord says:
I touched on this very topic in my very first blog post at my Creative Lifestyle blog.
I think all creatives deal with this and Julia is right on when she says “Perfectionism has nothing to do with getting it right”
I could not pretend to say it as eloquently (don’t know how to spell that) well as Julia but I think the gist is that we start questioning and having imposed on us, how we express things and end up not.
http://www.refurl.com/320
December 21, 2008 at 2:20 am
OzaMeilleur says:
Hey Gord!
Yes, I remember it well. And I know you’re a big fan of creativity and all its secret workings.
I’ll be doing the work on “The 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women” starting January 9. I think you’ll enjoy that. So don’t be a stranger…
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Peace & Love
xoxo
January 1, 2009 at 11:53 am
Nick says:
A google alert directed me to your page. I’ve been writing mostly medical posts on blogborygmi.com for over five years… Nice to see the same idea arise independently, elsewhere.
January 3, 2009 at 5:45 pm
OzaMeilleur says:
Hey Nick!
Well, well, well… so I’m not the first one to come up with that word. Damn! Hehe
So Google sends “alerts” when people make up words and post? How strange…
Thanks for dropping by. Keep on rocking in the free world!
Peace & Love
xoxo
January 6, 2009 at 6:00 pm