Thursday, April 9, 2009

100%?

Flashing back to few days ago, I saw myself lying on the bed, scribbling anime figures and right beside me, was a scatter of crumpled papers. My hand became more and more frantic as every drawing narrowly missed its completion and was reduced into paper balls that laid quietly beside a new slab of paper. All of which then became witness to my perfectionism, the stifling perfectionism as the pencil began to waltz on the white dance floor again.

*One hour later, I was on my bed, fast asleep - and a notable pile of snowballs in the dustbin.*

'Practice makes perfect' - Did i go too far into scribbling a perfection out of myself? Wouldn't that be too ideal as we all know perfection doesn't exist in this world? Aren't we born with limitations that imperfections are inherent in us (for example, we can't fly)? Why would I bother to draw something so flawless that I already knew it's impossible to do so?

As I looked back at the words, I had a thought: I shuffled the words and swapped the positions between first and third, and came up with this: Perfect makes practice. It somehow shed light on my scribbling business: I became slaved to perfection. It became tantalizing whenever I was in a hassle of redrawing the same figure and scrutinizing every little flaw my eyes could detect: I yearned for the perfect picture that I have forethought in my mind and it drove me into this rigmarole of redrawing and ended up with nothing else but fragments of false hopes. Hopes that I would eventually sketch a Shangri-La tomorrow, or the day after, or the week after...

So, the trinity must have had great stronghold in them to become a much-known adage to everyone. But little did I realize that something is very delicate behind what that's long since interpreted by me: I don't have to practice JUST TO reach perfections - Well, I don't have to chase the sun for its light, do I? I would just have to walk out into the porch and see how tall my plants have grown, how many flowers have they blossomed - it's all about the PROGRESS! it all comes down to IMPROVEMENTS! These little changes, these trivial transformations - and we are now breathing in the womb of Earth with all the richness around. However, is it perfect , this blue planet? With all the volcanoes and hurricanes and tsunamis? Yet, it nurtures the growth of every single breath it can possibly contain - something we should be more appreciative than the sheer Utopia. Something that are tangible rather than castle built on sand.

So, are we wrong to dream for perfection? Well, when the reality sinks in, dreams compensate nothing but mere dreams.

1 comment:

  1. Leong, methinks this is a great post! It's so poetic~~ hohoho..I like how you choose your words.

    PS- I do that drawing thing too! I'm not a perfectionist, but when it comes to drawing, I'm obsessed with perfection.. ^.^

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