Tag: Salvador Dali

Practice Makes Progression

My friend said that recently she woke up in the morning and looked at her bedding and decided that her comforter was getting worn and that she needed a new one. So, when she started looking at her phone, almost immediately all of these ads for comforters started popping up, no matter what she was looking at, on her browser. My friend is half-jokingly convinced that Google/Facebook/Twitter’s algorithms have gotten so good, that they are reading our minds.

Now, I personally think that Google/Facebook/Twitter are just copying, in rudimental fashion, the algorithm that the Universe/God has always had in place, since eternity. It never fails that if I need to hear a message, loud and clear, that message or that lesson pops up in my daily life all of the time, whether it be in books, on my computer, from talking with a friend or family member, or even just walking about in nature, when thoughts and ideas, seemingly “out of nowhere”, pop into my mind. The message that has been pinging lately in my heart, is to remember that we are always aiming for “progression, not perfection” in everything that we do.

Once someone asked me if I was a perfectionist and I scoffed. Ha! “Have you seen my clutter filled desk, or my stuffed closet?” I remember thinking. “Have you read any of my spelling-error-filled, confusing texts?” I am a rather impatient person who likes to get things done quickly, which doesn’t leave much time and consideration for perfection. However, when I thought more about the question, I thought that perhaps it is not so much what we do, that screams “perfectionist”, as it is, how we speak to ourselves about our actions. Do I beat myself up for my messy desk and closet and sloppy texts? Do I think I should live up to someone else’s standards that aren’t really mine? Do I stay away from trying new things for fear of “failing” at these endeavors? Do I judge myself so harshly that it steals a lot of the joy out of anything that I do? When something goes wrong, do I flog myself mercilessly about a mistake?

Salvador Dali quote: Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it.

The quote above is my daughter’s favorite. It is her algorithm to herself. She pastes and writes this quote everywhere – in her room, in her tennis bag, on her artwork and on her social media. I love that this particular Dali quote speaks to her, so strongly. It helps my daughter to feel fearless with everything that she tries and everything that she enjoys. This quote reminds my daughter to remember how far she has come in her studies, in her athletics, in her friendships, in her artwork and probably every facet of her life, instead of berating herself for not being perfect. When we aim for progress versus perfection, in all of our endeavors, this allows for mistakes. And as we all know, mistakes in life are as inevitable, as perfection is impossible.

Making Mistakes Quotes | Ellevate

What She Said

One of my favorite authors has always been Anna Quindlen. When I was young, I would eagerly await our family’s subscription to Newsweek and flip to the last page, to her column. It never failed to delight me and to provoke me to ponder. When I was in my twenties, I read her novel Black and Blue, which is one of the first books to really show the terror of stalking and the deadly reality of domestic violence. Another of one of her books, One True Thing, which was made into a movie with Meryl Streep and Renee Zewelleger, is one of those book/movies that has stuck in my memory for years. I think Anna Quindlen is a master with the pen. So, when I was at the library the other day, I checked out another one of her books called Being Perfect. It is a small, short, tome that reads more like an essay. I believe that I may have read it before, but somehow the Universe knew that I needed to read it again.

The premise of the book is that a lot of us start out in life, trying to live and to be, a formula of perfection. She claims that we morph ourselves into various forms of that formula, depending on what stage of life we are in – our early school days, our college years, being a parent, in our marriages, our various careers, etc. She claims that by being in what she calls a “lockstep” of trying to be perfect, we are cheating ourselves, and all of those who are having experiences with us, out of a true, authentic, in-depth experience that can only be unique to us. Computers are perfect. We are so much more imperfectly, deliciously complex.

When you first start taking your writing seriously, I think all writers fall into that “it’s all, already been said” mentality. I recently read about an author who was dying of cancer and claimed that she didn’t want to be that “cliche of another writer, writing about dying.” I love Anna Quindlen’s take on that in Being Perfect. This is what she said:

“Sometimes I meet young writers, and I like to share with them the overwhelming feeling I have about our work, the feeling that every story has already been told. Once you’ve read Anna Karenina, Bleak House, The Sound and the Fury, To Kill a Mockingbird and A Wrinkle in Time, you understand that there is really no reason to ever write another novel. Except that each writer brings to the table, if she will let herself, something that no one else in the history of time ever has. That is her own personality, her own voice. If she is doing Fitzgerald imitations, she can stay home. If she is giving readers what she thinks they want instead of what she is, she should stop trying.

But if her books reflects her character, the authentic shape of her life and her mind, then she may well be giving readers a new and wonderful gift. Giving it to herself, too. And that is true of music and art and teaching and medicine.”

She also applies this philosophy to parenting. This is what she says:

“You will convince yourself that you will be a better parent that your parents and their parents have been. But being a good parent is not generational, it is deeply personal, and it all comes down to this: If you can bring your children the self that you truly are, as opposed to some amalgam of manners and mannerisms, expectations and fears that you have acquired as a carapace along the way, you will be able to teach them by example not to be terrorized by the narrow and parsimonious expectations of the world, a world that often likes to color within the lines when a spray of paint, or a scribble of crayon, would be much more satisfying.”

My daughter, a budding artist, brought home a paper mache project the other day, in which she had decorated with words and ideas that inspired her. One quote on the project was from Salvador Dali. It said:

“Have no fear of perfection. You’ll never reach it.”

I asked her why that particular quote struck her. She said, “Well, if a great artist like Salvador Dali knew that he wouldn’t reach perfection, why should I worry about it? It makes me feel freer.”

I think that I can only end this day’s post with a smile.