002—Give yourself permission to still be learning

I have always struggled with perfectionism. Throw a pinch of vanity in there, too. I care deeply about the quality of what I do, especially if it may find its way to other people’s eyes and ears (or into their wallets.)

That’s not a brag. That’s a confession.

I have been identifying as a photographer for five years, an entrepreneur for fifteen, and a musician almost all my life. More recently, videography has earned a regular slot in my Pantone swatch (my weekly agenda) and an entry in my long-term goals dashboard. As for writing, besides my first book, you are reading my first exercise with the blog format. However, I do not quite yet identify as a videographer or writer. (For the record, I pay my bills thanks to my “creations” as an entrepreneur, i.e., my businesses. Profitability is not my goal when it comes to the other formats I pursue to express my creativity.)

I wish mastering one skill or field would do it for me—the simple life of those who have one name, one title, one card, one field of expertise, no explanations needed (in fact, no explanations asked.) It doesn't. Whenever I reached a place of comfort on thriving shores—or at least promising ones—my heart took me back to the sea to explore some more. More than once, when the season for self-renewal has come, I have chosen the less profitable path in favor of the one that allowed me to express my more authentic self, working against the gravitational pull of a place familiar where I already made a name for myself. I know that by now. I set my compass accordingly and don’t waste time looking for thriving shores.

All these creative endeavors come from the same underlying driving force: the urge to create to ensure that new meaning is constantly gained and old meaning is systematically preserved. (I see entrepreneurship as an act of creating new meaning at par with the arts.) I have endeavored to unearth this clarity—it wasn’t self-evident—and it allowed me to embrace the benefits and shortcomings of my polyhedral nature.

Nevertheless, regardless of the field—entrepreneurship, music, photography, videography, or writing—I have constantly struggled with the question: “When is my work good enough to be launched, played, shared, printed, broadcast, or published?”

“Most of us really want to offer the world something of quality, something that the world will consider good or important. And that's really the enemy because it's not up to us whether what we do is any good, and if history has taught us anything, the world is an extremely unreliable critic.”

- Ethan Hawke (from the TED video “Give yourself permission to be creative”)

The case for waiting one more day to start a new business, publish a new book, or post a new photo collection is always compelling—especially in the early years of our practice.

Here is what the inner dialogue would sound like.

“Taking one more day to improve my work before releasing it is not a matter of vanity or fear of rejection. No. It’s the elevated, responsible thing to do, given the high standards I hold myself accountable to. Not to mention my respect for everyone else’s taste and time. If I work one more day at it, my work will deliver more value, look or sound more distinct, and do so more succinctly, possibly even coming out as a remarkable work on the subject. Furthermore, releasing the product as-is would not honor my subject, which really deserves to be presented as part of a larger, more poignant narrative. In fact, it may ruin the idea’s potential irreparably.” (An identical narrative can be reworded for the act of creating a business, mutatis mutandis.)

For a moment, such a compelling case for an incremental, aspirational process may have even led you to forget that my thesis is against it.

But I am against it. I came to radically requalify and elevate the value of a work-in-progress—at least when it’s coming from those who strive for meaning, expression of their truth, personal excellence, and finding their way (as opposed to those who present average work for external motives, such as building an audience for commercial reasons, effectively hoping that someone will take the bait, but have no stake in the game of self-improvement.)

To fully embrace where we are in our creative journey—and find the way to present it to the world candidly—is not to concede to a lower standard. It is to reset our inner compass to point at our own truth. The only two lights in our navigation system we want to keep green are the honesty of our motives and the awareness that the world is an extremely unreliable critic. Everything else is fair game.

In fact, I’ll go even one step further and say that it is essential for a creator to start creating as early as possible, bring their work to their natural conclusion (e.g., a print for a photographer, a book for a writer, an operating business as small as “one product, one client, one purchase” for an entrepreneur, etc.), present it to the world—if so intended—and move on.

Regardless of where a creator is at in their journey, very few subjects will stay relevant for days, years, or decades. And if that happens, it is unrelated to the creator’s choice or worth, and does not earn them any stripes (if not the very fact that they have started to create.) More often, the sense of subject’s relevance will be gone, and the creator will end up hunting yesterday’s inspiration only to squeeze the last drops out of it.

Besides, it is often through the coalescing of the work they have created through the years that new and broad meanings surface. Without the earlier “lower standard” work, the more recent “higher standard” work, would lack texture and depth.

Your voice doesn’t need to be revolutionary. It doesn’t even need to be “good” if there even is such a thing. It simply needs to be true, and your most honest shot at it as far as that goes.*

I have been thinking about starting a blog for quite some time—too long—as I have debated what absolute value I can bring to the larger discourse. But when I finally put things in perspective as I did above, I wrote this post in one sitting. It is clear to me that it’s far from the last word on any subject, but it represents my truth and feels whole.

I did make a couple of minor edits, but I didn’t struggle with perfectionism this time.

L.F

* to me, that also settles the argument as to why AI-produced content cannot be compared to human-produced content. It may have higher technical standards or even be artistically superior, but in the end, it expresses the truth of… a machine.