I see a lot of quotes like this on Substack and to be honest, when I only have two subscribers (and one of them is me) I do take comfort in little confidence biscuits like this. And the theory is sound. Much better to put something imperfect out there than nothing at all, after all, creativity is so very subjective. Lovely stuff.
Anybody who has ever written anything will almost certainly struggle with knowing when it’s the best it can be. We agonise over a single word, is it too long, too short? The ease of editing with the click of a button means we can be cavalier with making it good after the fact.
Not so with all crafts. I fancy that the builders putting up our extension may have been reading inspirational quotes on the internet too. But, if I may be so bold, the logic doesn’t hold true for our work-booted friends. They have very much made our extension exist, whether they ever intended to make it good later, I can’t be sure.
Extension intensions aside, making it good is now the task they have to take on. By removing pretty much every internal wall they’ve built, in order to get something resembling a straight line. Demolishing, rebuilding, dust, dust, dust. If they’d taken the time and the care to make it good in the first place, we’d all be better off.
Perfection maybe the death of creativity but a little bit of pride in the work you put out into the world is not a bad thing. Especially if you’re a builder please.
"Perfection is the enemy of progress" - this is my mantra when I'm flat out with work. I'll take those small improvements and keep getting closer to perfecting the job, whilst progressing/learning as I go. I'm not a builder though!