Three imperfect things to enjoy – long layover edition
Three arguments for doing imperfect things
This week I’m in transit coming home from Taipei and I’m currently at the Newark airport in the seventh hour of the second layover (both around eleven hours). I landed in the Newark airport at 6:30am and got to see this beautiful sunrise over the skyline of the city of New York. The picture makes zero justice to the actual beauty of the scene but you can imagine how good it was.
The whole journey back home will take 40hrs, a full work week, and there’s a feeling of being stranded in a temporal island that is quite interesting to witness. A tension between wanting the time to pass, restlessness, but also knowing that there is nothing I can do to make it go faster. I decided to embrace the presentness of this present and enjoy it as much as possible. Observe myself, observe the liminality (that also feels very fitting after coming from this specific trip), observe time itself and let it do its thing.
There are some positives about having so much time. I’ve been reading, writing and making these collages to entertain myself and explore different ideas, things that I wouldn’t normally devote time to. It has been fun! And fitting with the theme of this edition of three things to enjoy: three arguments for making imperfect things.
1. Found this essay from Visakan sitting in my inbox and thought of sharing it here. I think often of the creative process, lately more oriented towards designers, but there are similarities over disciplines. What we all have in common is being humans with a desire to make something tangible, whether that’s writing, films, music, there’s a drive and inside of it frustration, love, excitement, disappointment amongst others coexist. From the Visa essay I liked the concept of letting the idea drive, something very hard to do but extremely satisfying when possible.
The first argument for making imperfect things is: go off rails you can make something great by accident. From the essay: ”There’s a tension between “keep in mind what you want to be doing” AND simultaneously goof off, mess around at the periphery, take random walks.”.
2. When I was reading the essay this song by Good Morning started playing. One of Visa’s talking points is to take baby steps, do one little bit at a time, celebrate progress. So I thought it was fitting somehow. The song seems to be about more than just work but also very clearly about making things and being conflicted about it.
This newsletter started as a way of doing something tiny consistently. There was no way I could say no to turning three links into bullet points every Sunday. Felt achievable and small, and the satisfaction of hitting send and showing up was enough. Now that I’m writing more, I’m happy that I started small: I built a habit and now I’m using it as an excuse to build another habit on top of it.
The second argument for making imperfect things is: if you do the work, no matter who small, no matter how you’re feeling, there will still be the reward of doing something at the end of it. Doing a tiny imperfect thing is still worthy of celebration, it may become something else, and “it’s gonna work sometimes”.
3. The same day I was reading the first essay, I found this one by Pketh, the creator of Kinopio club. I loved this sentence:
”Struggling and making mistakes is an important part of developing skills and – increasingly important – finding your own voice.”
The essay touches on a few aspects of the creative process like the blank page, the pace of writing, having “inefficient” processes but the one that stuck with me the most is the importance of struggling a little bit. In the most positive way.
I’m a big fan of lifting and in order to lift more weight or improve your form there is always a moment of struggle, of not doing it quite so well, of feeling like this additional weight is too much but eventually, with time and patience, the little additional weight becomes nothing and you forget that there was ever a struggle. It is satisfying to get to that point.
The third argument for making imperfect things is: of course you’re going to be bad at it, but for the thing to be yours and yours only, it is necessary to go through the process of becoming. The process of becoming is messy, sometimes painful, long, tiresome at times but overall: necessary. The only way out is through and nothing worth doing will come without effort.
That last sentence is tricky, it could be confused with “suffering is the only way out” as we confuse work with pain at times, but work can be joyful even when you’re frustrated or stuck. As with being stranded at an airport, it is possible to find the positives, and when you’re finally out of it and in the peace of your own bed you won’t even remember what it felt like to be there.
Have a great Sunday!