Perfect no longer

 Perfect no longer

The only exam I ever failed in my life was A- level ART.  It was the painting that let me down. Well, I thought the portrait I drew of someone in my class was really quite good. But the painting ended up being totally black with a couple of yellow spots. The subject we were given was ‘Smugglers’. With a little stretch of the imagination you can see what I was getting at. Can’t you?

My mother was a teacher. I come from a dynasty of teachers. I usually worked quite hard at school. And, being of a reasonable academic intelligence,  I got by without too much sweat. I do recall taking medicine to prevent the attacks of diarrhoea that would assail me on the day of the exams.  Anxious?  Definitely.

The darkness of drawers

That ’ failure’ when I was seventeen, well that really stuck. Something my mother said recently rang a bell with me. A very loud one. It was about her fear of looking stupid. Yes, I thought, I know that one! Over the next few days I thought about my perfectionism. And how many times I’ve written articles or stories and haven’t finished them. Because the search for perfection is endless. So my creations can never go out into the world and live in their own apartments and pay their own bills. Because they’re not perfect. If they’re very lucky, a close friend or two might get to see/read them. And I have read some short stories in public. But much of my writing has languished, truncated, in the darkness of a drawer or in a file on my computer which then gets lost in the transfer to a new PC.

 My mother’s remark made me realise how much this has got in my way. And has paralysed my creative drive at times. So I decided it was high time I got over it. If not now then when? It’s time to care less about what others think and to muzzle that little nagging voice in my ear. 

That’s why I am painting. And it’s why I am writing this blog. I am pushing myself to publish it without spending three days (or even three hours) tweaking it. And not not even being sure how to use blogspot.

The taste of freedom from this particular demon is exhilarating!