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Kafka said that writing is a form of prayer. Here is my hunched back, Lord—here are my nervous fingers! My hands fly anxiously across this keyboard, out and in, coughing and cackling, meeting briefly in the middle only to fly apart, never joining in solemn supplication.
I can’t do anything, because I want to do everything. But something tells me that that’s not good enough, that I can’t fall back on a mere desire to be great. I have to collect myself in a holy act, and verbal vomit does not suffice.
The problem is, my standards are too high. And running in stubborn parallels are the two competing urges: writing and writing well. There’s a major distinction here: I can’t write because I need to write well, and I can’t write well because I haven’t written. That is, writing well takes practice—and practice implies a lack of greatness, which I cannot tolerate manifested on a page. So I’m stuck. I’m paralyzed by a lack of talent.
And yet I feel called not only to be patient—that is, to realize that being is essentially becoming, and that I’ll never get to a stopping point, and therefore will never be satisfied with where I am—but also to take hold of this present immaturity, to squeeze life’s fruit for all its joyous juices, to drink in my receding childhood—but also to practice. Not only to endure weakness, but to take to the field and chase it. Laughing as I fly.
The aggravatingly practical maxim slaps me in the face on every rotation (I spin, it’s steady): writing well takes practice. And practice implies imperfection. So, I must learn to tolerate imperfection.
That’s truly the heart of the problem: I’m a perfectionist. Sure, I’m not freakishly neat, and my car sits stained by my inattention, but perfectionism is usually partial, anyway. Most people have it and keep it well-caged. My feeling is that some amount of perfectionism is required for status as an interesting person. It’s the ones who are sane in every aspect that bore me to death. No one keeps score in an asylum.
Nurse your neuroticism. (Life is passion.)