Do more less perfect things

Here is a short story: recently i was walking with my friends, and tried to play the rapping game with them. The rapping game is a fun game in which everyone makes a rhythm, we will rock you style, and we take it in turns to freestyle rap. The importance is not rhyme or skill, at least at first; the important thing is sticking to the rhythm, and not stopping.

And here’s the thing: not a single person in this group wanted to try it. Not in english or in their mother tongue. It seemed that there was a barrier of perceived inability that stopped them from wanting to give it a go.

I don’t mean to single out my friends because all of them are amazing people. This is just a particular example of a phenomenon, the phenomenon of not wanting to do something if you think you’ll be bad at it. Actually i do it all the time too. Even yesterday, when i was performing in an orchestra, i was telling my friends about the parts that go wrong, rather than focusing on the fact that purely by virtue of playing the cello, i am better than 99.9% of people in the world (assuming this website i found by a quick search that says that eight million people worldwide play the cello is to be believed). I’ve removed some of the music i published in the past because i don’t like how it sounds anymore. Because if it’s not absolutely perfect, what’s the point?

The world today is full of perfect things. The state of the art in film is for the most part so good that anything can be made, and look photo-realistic. Gone are the days when new film releases have monsters made of shoeboxes and plasticine. It feels as though the high level of polish in everything we consume discourages people from doing things for the fun of it, and sharing it in case other people will enjoy it too.

But the fact is, we don’t get better at things by not doing them. We get better at things by doing them a lot, badly at first, and then as we become more accustomed to the intricacies of the task, better and better. I firmly believe that it is impossible to do something a hundred times without getting a reasonable grasp of what it is that you want to do. That doesn’t mean that after doing a hundred paintings you will be able to start turning out mona lisas. But after doing a hundred paintings, i believe that you will have a reasonable grasp of how brushes work and how colours work, and be able to do a reasonable job at translating an idea into a finished thing. After a hundred more, you will be even better. But you didn’t get there by not doing any paintings for fear of painting something shit.

I think it’s important that we try to work towards renormalising doing things for fun. These days it seems that every hobby has to also be a financially viable side-hustle. But i don’t play the guitar and write songs because i’m going to be the next bob dylan. I do it because singing is a part of what it means to be human. I like it and i want to express my experiences and feelings with music. And that is enough justification.

So my message to everyone reading this is this: find something you want to do but feel scared to do, and do it, and then do it again, and if you enjoy it keep doing it, regardless of your talent for it. Because you will get better, and you will keep enjoying it, and your enjoyment of it will encourage other people to start enjoying things for the sake of it too.

Do more less perfect things!