According to Viktor Frankl, tension is a good thing. In what sense? When you’re suffering the tension between “what is and what ought to be” (The Doctor and the Soul, p. 108) makes you aware that there’s a problem with how things are right now, causing you to withdraw and distance yourself from it, while the “fruitful tension” helps you keep envisioning the ideal. You might for instance be encouraged to remove yourself from a bad situation or repent for wrongdoing and correct things in the future.
Any time you want to change yourself or change something in your situation the worst thing is to become complacent and lose that sense of tension, that conviction that “the way things are should not continue this way.”
This tension does not only apply to problems in life where something clearly has to change. It also applies when everything is seemingly going well. Skilled artisans don’t start with a problem that they have to solve but a skill that they want to make better. Yet they too need tension between “what is” (undeveloped level of skill) and “what ought to be” (highly skilled) because if nothing changes they will atrophy. Life either goes forward or backward. It doesn’t stand still.
I wondered: If you’re distancing yourself from “what is,” how is it possible to feel this tension between the skill level (or spiritual level or emotional level) you’re at now and the growth you envision for yourself, without feeling bad about yourself and your present level of ability?
So I asked my son the artist and I want to share with you the email exchange I had with him.
Batya: There is an attitude of perfectionism, where the person is very self-critical and competitive and it comes from a feeling of always being “not good enough.” But there’s a different attitude towards life, especially when you’re an artist, that has a different feel to it. You can play a piece of music or enjoy your process of whatever you’re creating at the level you’re at now.
You still want to move forward because that’s what makes you feel alive, to keep going, to keep growing and developing. It’s not out of a perfectionistic “I have to be there and being here is no good.” It’s something else, and I’m grappling with even finding the word for it.
Any thoughts?
Rafi: I think it’s mainly about the difference between exploration and experiencing things through artwork as opposed to focusing on being the one creating the artwork and having ownership over it.
At the beginning there really is a frustrating feeling that nothing is coming out right and you focus on trying to become “good” and impress people with your technical facility. You’re thinking about it the wrong way, as material for self-promotion and as a ruler to measure yourself against others with. That competitive approach is superficial, but it’s part of what pushes you to practice and get better.
After putting in enough hours and years of practice you become more and more adept technically and start to focus more and more on the content. It’s less about trying to make yourself look good and more about discovering the wonder of life.
I don’t mean you see something beautiful and then paint it or write a story about it, copying what you saw. What I mean is that the artistic process is part of experiencing it, and the resulting artwork is almost a by-product of that experience. It’s not the ultimate creation that you have striven for years to create and are now presenting to mankind so they can admire you, but rather it’s a part of a conversation between you and what you experience.
It’s similar to the feeling you get traveling to somewhere new, but it becomes more tangible by being formed and filtered through the artist, in other words through his past experiences and his own unique perspective. That is the part that makes the artwork fascinating to other people, that eavesdropping into the “private” conversation of the artist, beyond the artwork’s superficial aesthetic quality and the artist’s technical flourishes.
Beyond that, part of the exploration and wonder of life is in the artwork itself and that is part of the artist’s experience. A musician enjoys listening to the music being formed as he’s playing, he is as much the audience as anyone else listening. Authentic humbleness in art is not pretending you’re not as good as you are, it is enjoying the art that’s formed instead of trying to take ownership over it.
This mode of artistic creation is what leads to “great art” and although the change doesn’t happen overnight, it appears in moments during your life more and more as you progress and that is the ultimate goal worth striving for. Once you realize that, your focus is moved away from some distant unobtainable goal to your current surroundings and life, and you can enjoy the journey itself.
To answer your question more directly – good perfectionism is trying to make the most of the moment and place and skill you’re at, realizing the place you are as an artist is part of the scenery in your journey, and although there is more scenery to come, which might be even better and more impressive, it doesn’t take away from the beauty of the current scenery you should enjoy.