mediocrity

I was listing things that held me back. Fear of judgement, of stepping on toes, of duplicity; all valid, but not the thing I fear the most.

Becoming mediocre to the world haunts my working and pondering.

Many of us never begin what we should because of this fear. The ultimate perfectionist-paralysis that grounds important work with horribly impenetrable logic. "I'll never be as good as..." or "I can't make money from doing work like this."

Or maybe we do begin, but when we see the result, we throw down our brush and storm away in disgust. The ultimate perfectionist-pointlessness that says "I don't have the ability to do this."

From personal experience to begin and overcome perfectionist-paralysis, you only need one cheerleader, one decent painting, one free hour.

Then it begins.

Sarah Wilson addresses our perfectionist-pointlessness like this:

All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, its just not that good. Its trying to be good, it has potential, but its just not. But your taste, the thing that got you in the game, is still killer.

And your taste is why your work disappoints you.

We have the highest standards for ourselves, so we let ourselves down.

"The gap" between mediocre and good seems too far to cross, so we shut down any bridge-building that might work.

Before we learn to be good, we must shift our paradigm, so we start creating for the sake of creation itself.