What perfectionism actually is

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We all run into creative blocks from time to time.  Anytime we’re coming up with something new, innovating, changing the way we do things, or blazing a trail of any kind we are creating.  Many people engage in creative processes that they don’t realize are creative processes.

And the flow of the creative process is always prone to blockage.

A teacher of mine once said that there isn’t actually such a thing as “writer’s block”.  Not really.  What we think of as writer’s block is actually something else.  He said writer’s block is actually…perfectionism block.

Not writer’s block, perfectionism block.

That insight has never left me - I still think of it often, both with regard to my own process and that of my client organizations’.

Oftentimes we avoid getting started with a project because we are being too perfectionistic.

Well, if our problem is actually perfectionism, we should probably take some time to understand it.  Because I would say it’s actually born of a deep and sublime impulse.  When we understand it better we can honor that impulse without getting stuck in our creative process.

Perfectionism is…longing for the divine.

Yes, truly.  And here’s how.

Like the roots of so many of our psychospiritual conditions, I see perfectionism as theological, and quite explicitly so.  But we need to build the case.  See if you can follow me.

We can encounter what is often called “God” through a variety of ways.

Some are religious and devotional.  When people access the divine through these channels they generally approach God in a personal way.  We talk to people and relate to them emotionally.

Others are philosophical.  When people access the divine through these channels they generally approach God in a more abstract way that draws in elements from all across the history of philosophy.  We contemplate and meditate on abstraction.

This isn’t a right or wrong thing, because the fact is that plenty of people take both approaches.  But some approaches are more relational and others are more rational.  There’s room for both, and many throughout the years have felt the need to find relational and rational elements in their personal religious practices, but I tend to take the rational approach myself, and I draw nourishment from the historical records of other philosophers having done so as well.

One way that theologians have accessed the philosopher’s God over the centuries is through what are called “ontological arguments”.  These are arguments that attempt to prove the existence of a supreme being through rational argumentation that does not rely on sensation or experience.

The most famous of these is the first ontological argument of St. Anselm of Canterbury who was active in the late 1000’s.  Check out this podcast episode if you would like to hear me explain it.

But the ontological argument I think about the most these days in my coaching and consulting work is that of Renee Descartes.  You probably know a bit of his philosophy thanks to “Cogito, ergo sum” (“I think therefore I am”) by which he began to build an epistemological basis for understanding reality starting with the foundation of existing as a thinking being who cannot doubt his own existence without absurdity, but he made many other contributions to philosophy, mathematics and science.  One such example is that he invented coordinate graphing (which is why we call the system Cartesian).

Descartes’ ontological argument goes as follows:

I’m not sharing this to prove the existence of God.  I’m sharing it because I believe that the source of what we call writer’s block, or as we can now say perfectionism block, is found in the first premise.

Notice that what is presented in that first premise, while technically synonymous with God, is quite impersonal and abstract.  While we know this would be true of God, it is hard for us to imagine a person with those traits.  Still, the Catholic, Jesuit-trained Descartes would have had a devotional practice and not only a contemplative one.  I would say that this argument is in many ways less about the God of Israel, and more about Plato’s theory of forms, but Descartes uses the perfection of existence to bring it into reality.

Plato thought that there were two worlds: one primary, perfect, ideal, static, timeless, spaceless (the forms), and the other secondary, changing, imperfect, and shadows of the first (the real world).  In other words, the real, concrete world we navigate in each moment is patterned on the perfection of the timeless perfect forms, and so participate in perfection, but is not able to entirely express it.  Still, we have a sense of perfection.  Starting to see where this is going?

Plato ultimately indicated that everything we do in the dynamic, changing, imperfect concrete world is patterned on our sense of the perfection of the timeless forms.  And I agree with him.

Think of what this means for the creative process, then.  We envision what is not real, comparing it to the perfect ideal, and then work to create it in reality.  But the moment it enters concrete reality it loses its timeless perfection, and that’s always really hard, because a part of it still lives beyond space and time, where all perfections meet.

A big part of us wants to keep it there where it will not be sullied by reality, and that is why, I believe, we drag our feet on creative projects, because that way they can stay ideal and we need never see them fall.

But, keeping things perfect will not help you.  Only bringing them into reality will change your life and attract other people to your cause, organization, creation, etc.

Now, when we bring our visions of the ideal into reality we want them to exhibit as many of the original perfections as possible, and this can happen with various degrees of success.  If you brainstorm with me, I can see your perfections clearly and help to preserve them through that process.  Let me know if you want my help: LINK

But that is why we suffer from perfectionism - we wish to keep our creative ideas in the perfect Platonic realm, where Descartes’ supreme being resides, beyond space, time, entropy, friction… 

We suffer from perfectionism because of our longing to stay with the divine, which exists beyond time and space.

It’s important to start in the realm of the ideal, but if we stay there we don’t really live.  Living, creating, leading, organizing is fraught with imperfection, and we must make peace with this.

The next time you’re stuck, ask yourself: am I hesitant to leave the realm of ideal, timeless perfection?  If so, remember that this is how reality works, and we need to get our hands dirty, just as I’m doing with this post.  It doesn’t match my ideal, because nothing ever does.  But it’s the only way.

Happy creating!