The Pursuit of Perfection
Published · 14:54 · 2,920 views
About This Video
Van came up with it on a run: perfectionism is a form of cowardice. Then he revised it. Disruptive perfectionism is a form of cowardice. And arrogance. Who are you to decide what is perfect? That's up to us, the viewer. His overriding rule: get it done. Finish the project by Thursday so he can upload. Cut corners, develop workarounds, accumulate enough workarounds and you develop a style. If you are lucky, you develop originality.
Transcript
foreign going to pick up a gift from someone who is an excellence Creator artist I never read my YouTube comments if
someone's responding as me to my YouTube comments they're an imposter but I do read
I think every single message I receive on my patreon and I do this on Fridays
and it's a great part of my week because it's my interaction with my audience and with the like ride or die core of my
audience and a lot of audience people write in and ask me
how do I deal with perfectionism or they say that they are having trouble with perfectionism and that it's getting in
the way of them starting or finishing a project so I've been thinking about this concept
for a while of perfectionism and on my run I digest these thoughts and
I just came up with this brutal idea perfectionism is a form of cowardice
and I thought about it more and I'm like well no because there are some artists who are sort of plagued with perfectionism but they make
excellent work as a result so it's not it's not cowardice
disruptive perfectionism is a form of cowardice and then I started thinking more about
well what is what is perfectionism what are you doing when you're when you're holding up your standard to perfect and
you're essentially in a way playing God who are you to decide what is perfect
and what is not that's up for us the viewer the consumer of whatever you're making to decide and so I came up with a
sort of addendum to my quotation and the addendum is perfectionism is a form of
two pejoratives cowardice and arrogance but the question remains do I have a problem with it and I don't think I don't think we can get to perfectionism perfectionism isn't up
to us but there's this excellent standard and then good enough standard and I am a good enough artist
[Music] my like overriding rule is get it done it's finish the project that's what I'm optimized for finish the project finish
it by Thursday so that I can upload it and that includes if I'm making a parachute roll up device for my truck
and I'm making a video about it I've got to make both by Friday therefore I have to cut Corners which is
workarounds essentially and enough workarounds you develop a style and you develop technique that might be your own
and as a result if you're lucky you may develop originality and hopefully I I have a degree of that
but it comes from this good enough attitude last Friday I'm reading the messages on
patreon I get a message from a patron named Ari he said I've made you a gift and then he links to his Instagram I
follow the link and it's there's a bunch of pictures of work that he's made and I don't know which one is the one that's the gift for me but there's one that
I've got my eye on and I hope it is and so I write him back which one is it and he says oh it's the top left one or
whatever in the feed and I look and I'm at once excited and
also I'm like oh because he is an Ari is in excellence Creator an
excellent artist and I felt like this gift that he's made is
too good it's too good to be a gift like how can I honor this gift I'm not capable of honoring this gift because I just do good enough stuff I don't make
excellent stuff but he made it unsolicited he made it just and then he showed it to me he didn't like foist it on me or ship it to
my house so that now there's this big thing I have to deal with he just said you know he was very humble about it and so greedy me I'm just like when can
I pick this thing up and I picked it up yesterday so I had the weekend to sort of think about it and
think about Excellence versus good enough and that's why we have this video
so I'll just pick one example of what makes me a good enough artist I shot some footage of me
so I could have footage of me in the car going to Ari's in case I needed to put voice over underneath and I put the
camera on face recognition and then I put the camera on autofocus and it's completely out of focus and I shot it on
the way home so if you're from Los Angeles and you're sharp and you drive the 10 a lot you're gonna be like wait a second he's not going to downtown L.A
he's leaving from downtown LA but to me good enough I just need this footage so that I can have my narration
underneath it good enough and I'm not going to go back and I'm not going to reshoot it Wes Anderson would reshoot it Wes Anderson would get
it in my mind perfect and in his mind good enough but in his mind good enough is
excellent I think all of Wes Anderson's films are excellent and I think people who disparage his film don't necessarily value excellence and perhaps
they're looking for Perfection one of my brothers has a problem with Wes Anderson films and I I'm just like do you not see the
Excellence he brings and my my brother has a good point and that he my brother is not engaged by the story and
that's perhaps maybe what keeps it from Perfection but it doesn't keep it from excellence and some of his movies like
Rushmore are excellent and perfect and to me Wes Anderson is the best filmmaker of that of his generation and
if I had to keep one of all those guys and gals I would keep him because he's original and his work is of the highest
degree of Excellence to me my work in my mind is when I'm making it I reach these
good enough levels where I'm doing a task and like no not right not right not right not perfect good enough keep it
take that shot Etc whatever it is the script good enough the idea good enough
as a result last year I made 300 minutes about of content of audio visual content
that's three feature films I think Wes Anderson made one last year he might have made two he has two coming out this year this is the first time I think
maybe in his career that he's had two features come out in one year but I am my own gaffer I'm My Own cameraman
I'm My Own editor I'm My Own director I am my own Teamster one guy so
what the corner I cut is the Excellence corner I do the good enough but I do all of these things
Teamster gaffer director to a good enough level because I am optimized for
Speed and reliability not you know perfect camera angles perfect
lighting perfect audio no I want these things robust I want them out they're like I don't know
I hope there is high quality as Toyota reliability above all I I think I learned this in Tom Sax's Studio he had
this ethic this any job big or small do it well or not at all once a job has
begun do not stop until it's done and then Tom even made these little stickers and they said
Krusty the cro crusty the Clown's seal of approval it's not just good it's good
enough so you have perfection good enough and in between you have excellence [Music] and this is why Ari's gift is excellent it's made out of riffs and white oak
not the crappy Douglas fur that I make everything out of and if you look at all the joinery it's
all either zero tolerance or 30 maybe 64th of an inch tolerance I build everything to sixteenth of an inch
tolerance you can see there's little spaces in between the drawers here that's to allow the wood to expand and contract with the
humidity in the seasons without the drawers getting jammed the drawers on this even with weight in them
are smoother than these ball bearing drawers from this Craftsman tool chest dovetail joints the rails are
I don't know 3 8 of an inch deep so that there's the least amount of friction and
that allows the drawers to go in and out the the drawer bottoms are some beautiful
like three ply hardwood plywood the handles are perfect
it's heavy it's solid it's perfectly Square but above all it's the sole of the thing
it took Ari a month to make and it's it's excellent
I think there's two roots to Excellence and the first route is the Lombardi root the Vince Lombardi root
Vince Lombardi was a football coach he won five NFL championships three in a
row three of the five were in a row and then he won the first two Super Bowls
and Vince Lombardi or as they call him in Green Bay the Pope said
Perfection is not attainable but if we Chase Perfection we can achieve
excellence Perfection is not attainable but if we Chase Perfection we can achieve
Excellence so the pursuit of perfection or positive perfectionism
can Elevate you to a level of Excellence perhaps it's not the technique I use and
the second route to Excellence I hope is my good enough ethos in which I am good
enough good enough good enough good enough over and over and over and over again with productivity and prolific
production optimized such that my good in the good enough
is raised to a higher and higher standard so that at some point
it reaches the level of extremely good which is the dictionary definition of Excellence something is excellent when it is
extremely good so my hope is through this repetition and discipline my good enough
will be at a level at a standard of extremely good Aristotle the Greek gave us a
prescription for how to put Excellence sorry for how to put perfection in our work Aristotle
gave us a clue and Aristotle said pleasure in the job puts perfection in
the work pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work
with Ari's tool chest my tool chest now I can feel the pleasure he took in in building it I
can also very easily feel the pain and the pain in the ass it was to build it
and I could when I visited him in his shop I could see the pleasure this is a happy man
in this phase of my car creative or artistic development I'm trying to optimize
pleasure and joy in the things I make and with this particular video so far it hasn't been miserable [Music] foreign
Products & Tools Mentioned
- Toyota recommends — reliability praised
- Craftsman tool chest uses — workshop storage
- Douglas fir uses — wood material
- white oak uses — wood material
People Referenced
Tom Sachs, Vince Lombardi, Aristotle, Wes Anderson
Films & Media Referenced
- Wes Anderson film referenced