Perfectionism and its debilitating burden

The moment I finished typing the title for this post, I wanted to change it. I wanted it to be better. I knew it was possible and I knew I could feel it when I had typed it down. But I won’t. Because I know it is a trap.

I’ve been writing off and on for a long time. And yet when I sit down to write, words don’t flow onto the screen. It is an exasperating process. The critical voice inside me is always in charge. I’m always going back and re-reading everything to the point where I make no progress at all. I spend the whole time “fixing” the earlier parts.

I’ve always been meticulous, but I feel like the tendency has been growing to a point where I find it difficult to publish even a single post. I have been writing a post in the past days for longer than I’d be able to admit. It’s been a couple of weeks of me trying to finish it but I just end up polishing and re-writing paragraphs until they feel “right”. Obviously they don’t feel “right” even after the changes. I end up with polished paragraphs that don’t go well with each other. It reads like a big collection of thematic quotes. It’s like an all-star cricket team of the best bowlers and batsmen that realizes on match day that none of them can field. I wish the meticulousness didn’t come at the cost of the flow and I could write one short story per day like I always keep promising myself.

So to tell the critical voice inside me to bugger off, I’m publishing this drivel without any editing. I do still hate the title.