Description

Is striving for perfection actually a good thing, or is a fool's game?

Music and links from this episode

1. Dark Hearted by White Visor
2. The queen rat. by Coin Locker Kid
3. We Waste Time by Ugh God

Line-by-line notes

1. INTRO
2. Hi
3. My name’s Craig
4. And I’ve got a problem
5. It’s a problem that plagues in my professional life
6. And my every day life
7. Every time I try and do something
8. This problem rears it’s head
9. Over and over
10. It gnaws at my psyche
11. And grinds at my creations
12. My problem is perfection
13. Or rather, the relentless pursuit of it
14. This is AADA, and I’m Craig Burgess
15. PLAY MID SONG
16. I can hear you laughing
17. I sound like those people in job interviews
18. Who admit their biggest weakness is being a perfectionist
19. That perfection, or striving to be perfect
20. Is not a problem at all
21. It doesn’t do you any harm
22. Or cause you any ill will
23. But that’s just not true
24. As anybody will tell you in the creative game
25. Striving for perfection is the fastest way to ruin
26. Or the slowest way, depending on how you look at it
27. Seeking perfection is a fool’s game
28. It’s an impossible errand that can never be completed
29. But nobody tells you that
30. When you first start out
31. I think there’s 2 people in this world
32. The people who are happy with their lot and happy to accept things
33. And the other people, the people who constantly strive for perfect
34. You often see CEOs of large organisations fall into the second category
35. They’re classic type A personalities
36. The kind of people you don’t like
37. And the type of people that are often called Sociopaths
38. Most creatives pursue perfection
39. Especially on personal projects
40. This is the exact reason why I’ve never managed to make myself a design portfolio
41. Because I want it to be perfect
42. And I can’t figure out what perfect looks like
43. Because it doesn’t exist
44. I see this same kind of thinking in designs students
45. And young people
46. They want to keep tweaking things, and changing things
47. Because they’re never happy with how it looks
48. The thing they produce never looks like the thing they imagined in their brain
49. And then perfection gets mistaken for indecisiveness
50. Perfection is an illusion
51. When you make something
52. And you look back at it the week after
53. You always see ways you could have improved it
54. And you’re never happy with the previous things you’ve made
55. But actually, that’s a REALLY GOOD THING
56. It means you’ve improved
57. It means you’ve got better, even within a week
58. And it means you didn’t try to perfect it endlessly, until you went in a gigantic circle
59. The truth about perfection is this
60. Perfection isn’t real
61. It isn’t possible by anybody
62. Perfection is an abstract noun
63. One person’s definition of perfection directly contradicts somebody else's 
64. Anything you create can never be perfect
65. And the second you...