Deadly Game of Chess
On perfectionism, writer's block, and the radical act of creating anyway — even when nothing feels good enough.
While it has been difficult for me to write the last few weeks, chess has come easily. I have sat down in front of my computer screen religiously, waiting for inspiration to strike. This is usually accompanied by a latte and puff pastry or a debaucherously dirty gin martini, depending on the hour.
Today it's an iced chai and the same hesitation. My finger tips are lingering over the keys, with a heavy weight. My head is swimming with ideas, but they keep coming out watered down. This dilemma is rooted in a mental tug-of-war between what I "ought" to share with the world and what I feel led to.
"Your words have to mean something," my inner critic sighs. "They have to stir something in the cosmos, reveal an unutterable truth, move people." I have played this chess game with myself every day, and every day, I have yet to move a single piece across the board. If I have nothing powerful to share, why write anything at all? Why pick up the paint brush? Record a song?
This way of thinking is like cancer for a creative soul. When we apply the pressure to be perfect, to be exceptional from the start, we leave no room for mistakes or questioning or self-compassion. Which, in my experience, is the very foundation of a creative person's path. Without play, there is no product. Julia Cameron says it best:
"Perfectionism is not a quest for the best. It is a pursuit of the worst in ourselves, the part that tells us that nothing will ever be good enough."
I would love to chalk up the last few weeks of writer's block as a freak-thing, a lightning strike in the corn fields of my brain, but I am too painfully self-aware to believe that hopeful invention. After all, perfectionism is an old friend of mine. We have been going round and round since my early childhood days. It would be foolish not to recognize its presence, as it ruled my life for so long. While this personality trait has remained the same, the difference now lies in how I respond when it rears its unreasonable, critical head.
In this very moment, I am letting myself unfold. I am pushing my seat away from the proverbial chess table. Oh, I'm experiencing writer's block, because nothing I write lately feels notable? Great, I'll write about writer's block. Checkmate.
Our power lies in self-mastery and sometimes, a dash of long-overdue defiance. This goes for everyone, not just the writers and artists and musicians of the world. When we are able to peer deeply into the self, excavate the ugly, uncomfortable truths, and face them with curiosity instead of fear or shame, our hearts come out of hiding. Perfection does not have the ability to metastasize when we embrace the worst parts of ourselves willingly. This is perhaps the greatest act of resistance and a piece well-positioned on our board. In choosing compassion for the self, we have room to play, to grow, to stumble. The important part is that we're moving and not stuck playing an eternal game of shitty chess with ourselves.
So today, I am practicing defiance. I am sharing my "ugliness" in pursuit of the beauty that is authenticity. I do not have to be perfect. I won't always have the right words. My brush strokes are allowed to be clumsy. My songs, nonsensical. We all might be fumbling through the darkness of our cluttered minds some days, but my God, let's continue to keep moving forward, knowing that the significance lies in the act of trying. It has never been about a finished product, or what you or I can show for all of this work. It's about the feeling, the unraveling, the joy of doing, of being, just for the sake of it.
We can stop playing the game. In fact, we can walk away from the board.