why untitled, unwritten?

I once labeled everything before it was written, until I found it kept too many words away. Now I am leaving the unwritten untitled, until it grows into a name.

Sunday, August 31, 2014

On Perfection



Striving and trying, they are such different things. Striving connotes--drips with--screams perfectionism. Trying-that's giving it your best shot, suggests action. Maybe that's not the case etymologically speaking, but that's my impression. 


Striving suggests desperation, tirelessness, exhaustion, envy, attempting to become that which you are not. 

Trying suggests you are acting in the get-up-and-do-something sense, not the pretending; working; making an effort; pushing your limits while yet accepting some of them because they help mark the boundaries of your self. 


I think striving might start out as trying, and perhaps the shift happens with too much trying, all compounding on itself until you lose sight of your self on the pursuit of some impossibly high standard--some imagined ideal you'll never reach and yet will always strive for. 



I don't say this to mean give up on dreams or goals. Rather, I say this to tell myself to stop striving and start trying; stop pursuing this impossible image and just try. Try your best when you can manage it, and accept less when you must. Just try again. Don't strive--just try. 

These ideas are just forming...and I suspect they will shift. 

Tomorrow is, after all, a new day full of new chances and new ideas, and who knows what I will think then?


1: desktop mess /// 2: the page I meant to make /// 3: on the left: the bleed-through on one side; on the right: the first words I thought when I saw the accidental beauty. /// 4: where the ink bled through and to, a secret message to me to embrace imperfect efforts, and a little stream-of-consciousness letter to myself and all fellow strivers who need to be try-ers.