Perfection and the Mighty Enormous

One thing about me that’s changed over the years is I’ve become less of a perfectionist. I used to think nothing was good enough, and looking back, it definitely meant I got a lot less done. It’s funny – if things have to be 100% right, you can freeze up and achieve very little, but if you aim for 95% you can actually crack through things at a fair old pace. Obviously you have to be sensible about it – a working engine is the first 5% of a car, not the last – but something can be ‘ready’ before it’s ‘done’. The current trend to launch software in ‘beta’ is an example of that thinking, and it works. Perfection is paralysing.

Somehow I was reminded of this this lunchtime, listening to Prince’s song Kiss. It’s an absolutely fabulous track. It’s novel, funky, catchy, sexy, brilliantly produced and cool. Anyone creating a single work like that could die happy. If you haven’t heard it recently, dig a copy up – it’s perfection.

And yet, Tom Jones came along an absolutely knocked the balls out of it. Nailed it. And as a friend of mine once said, “When Jones nails a song, it stays nailed.” How is that justice? How can you be broken if you strive for perfection, but if you do the impossible and achieve it someone can still come along and effortlessly trump it?

Obviously, most of us will never face this problem directly. Very few of the readers of this blog are actually as cool as Prince (though some do wear the stilettos and eyeliner). And none of us will be graced by the attention of the Mighty Welsh Enormous. But the problem stands: strive for perfection and you may achieve nothing. Achieve perfection and even that won’t last. Delude yourself that a thing like, “The Best” can exist, and you end up watching football.

What’s the answer? I don’t know – I’m just rambling at lunchtime. But I think from now on I might try rating my efforts in terms awesome per minute, rather than the absolute awesome that history demands…