Perfection: Part III

A couple years ago I had to attend a motivational sports talk. It was mainly supes lame, but the speaker said one thing I really liked. He said the stereotypical, "Perfect practice makes perfect! GO ALL OUT IN PRACTICE, DUDES." But, he unpacked that explaining we often hold back just a smidgen in practice because we're worried we will somehow preemptively burn out for game day. But, he explained, that defeats the whole purpose of practicing! The point is to slowly get better with every practice. How can we ever get better than our best if we never even get to our best to excel past it?

This is how I feel about writing. For a while I would get ideas and hold on to them, stockpiling. "That's a good idea," I'd think. "I'd better save it away for when I really need it." But, then, I gave myself the goal of updating this blog every day, so I use up my ideas as they come, and guess what? I don't run out. Writing begets writing. When I started writing sketch again after a couple years hiatus, I had the same worry. I made a small list of sketch ideas in my notebook, and I thought I'd better parcel them out throughout the semester. But, then I just wrote whatever I could think of, and, guess what again? I get more ideas every week. So many I don't have time to write the things I think of.

I have a suspicion this is how all things work, but my experience kind of ends with writing. And perhaps loving. Because I think loving begets loving too.


I stayed up all night writing my final midterm paper. When I arrived at today's sketch meeting, Chelle had this pumpkin latte for me! She used my name because hers is hard for people to hear sometimes.