Random Musings 1

Perfection is death. So said singer, and Johnny's daughter, Roseanne Cash in a radio interview a month or two ago. I agree with her. I know this as an artist, because try as I might I will never perfectly capture or express exactly what I want to capture or express in any one of my paintings or drawings. I don't even think I come close. I also believe this to be the obsessive dilemma shared by all creative souls, no matter how refined, honed, polished and, well, perfected our technical skills. And sometimes, perhaps often, our technical skills even get in the way, doing more to obscure than to release the vision that torments and tantalizes us. Even in writing this blog, I never feel like I am coming close to what I want or to need to say, but in a way, that's okay, because I still will have come perhaps just a little bit closer to saying it. Much as I have little sympathy for Olympian athletes (competitiveness and ego both tend to disgust me) I can understand their absolute driving obsession with being their most perfect in their chosen sport, and the perennial frustration they must have to live with that they never seem to get it quite right, not even after pulling all the gold medals that can be produced and minted. There is always lurking underneath the pride of accomplishment and the intoxicating drug of victory that nagging shadowy fear and doubt that they never quite got it, they never quite lived up to their potential. That they are never really going to get there. This is also shameless and unabated ableism, by the way. When you are living with a disability, your level and expectations of perfection become something rather different. I have also come to know this from the many people I work with who are living with a mental illness. While a completely able individual might think nothing about getting the groceries done and the meals planned for the week, for someone living with depression, anxiety, psychosis and mood disorders, simply getting to the grocery store to buy a bunch of bananas is going to be an achievement. Throw in a container of milk and they are just rockin'. Or simply getting the dishes washed, dried and put away on the same day that you dirtied them. Even just getting the dishes washe. Of course, self-improvement is a good thing. We are never a finished or complete work, and so we always have to be setting new goals for ourselves. But I don't think the perfection lies in the achievement, since that is always going to be elusive, but in the effort, in the journey. I feel that at this time in my life, as unfinished and imperfect as I am, at sixty-three, I can not think of a time in my life when I have found the ride itself so enjoyable. I will never reach my goal in drawing and painting as I only wish that I could. I will keep trying, but for one simple reason. The ride, the journey, the route that I am taking is awesome. I would not have it any other way.