You’ll Never Perfect Your Craft

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How does that make you feel?

You'll Never Perfect Your Craft

You’ll never perfect your craft.

A Chimera

The idea that you can perfect your craft is a chimera, a distraction.

17 thoughts on “You’ll Never Perfect Your Craft”

    • Exactly. What would we do? Also, we waste so much time striving for something we will never achieve. Brilliance is within our grasp, as is wisdom. Why not try for those, instead of chasing one of the only “impossibles” in human existence?

      I keep coming across the phrase “perfect my craft” and its variations. When I saw it again most recently (a couple of days ago), I’d had enough. It struck me as being so empty of anything of value or possibility. This is my antidote to that. 🙂

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      • I think of Zeno’s Achiles paradox as illustrative of this. The striving and progression towards a goal that one will never reach, but will always be approaching, always getting closer.
        We are all perfectly imperfect.
        Perfectly.

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      • Very well stated.

        I believe that perfection in writing is even more of an illusion. We’ve really no idea what we are striving for, only that we will know it when we achieve it, perhaps. That day will never come.

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      • I also think about how Taiji practitioners (or “players”) look at their art. No matter how long we practice, no matter how many years one has studied, even if one is a “master,” one is always still a student. There are no belts or “levels.” There is no “goal” that one reaches and says, “There. Now I am done.” One always Practices with a capital “P.” I feel it is best in all ways and at all stages of any art to try and retain this attitude.
        I’ll shut up now.
        There. Now I am done. 😉

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    • Perfect characters make for damn boring reading. 🙂

      As for writing being perfect…dream on, people, because it is impossible. I did this post because I was sick of seeing the empty phrase “perfecting my craft” all over the Internet. I think people use it as some sort of shorthand for, “I am working really hard to be the best writer/artist I can be”, without realizing that the substitution is weak and meaningless.

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  5. Many times I wish for perfection and it turns me away from my craft, whatever it may be at the time. Thank you for the reminder 🙂

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    • You are quite welcome! We are certainly capable of brilliance and originality, but when we strive for the impossibility of perfection we actually sell ourselves short. The quest for perfection is just one big distraction from actually doing work, in my opinion. 🙂

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