Perfectionism
Imagine being subtle
I like subtlety. My mind is drawn to it.
The fine veins of leaves when god rays from a setting sun cut through the canopy. The cozy warmth or the irritating cool of late-evening lights. The arrangement of rooms. The intricate valleys of an iris. What people say, and the way they say it.
Noticing details is one thing. Needing them to be right is another. It’s easier to appreciate subtlety than to ensure its existence in what we create. And yet, I try.
It’s reflected in my approach to things, my conduct. I’m considered diplomatic but honest, choosing one word over another, ensuring that I’m maximally heard. My work receives the same treatment, choosing one way of formalizing a statement over another, refactoring to streamline, building a beautiful system with each careful analysis.
But the line has to be drawn. Not everything can be done this way. Prioritize.
Yet, when setting up this website, I told myself not to get lost in the weeds. Even then, I nudged the contrast, shifted the spacing, rethought the layout.
As a kid, I used to put off doing homework until the last possible hour. But once I started, I couldn’t stop until it was done properly. Not just finished. Proper.
This is a problem.
A lot of life is practically a roll of the dice. Often, it doesn’t matter how airtight your policy paper is, only that you write something that can be parsed reasonably well in about a minute. Of course, that’s assuming the reader isn’t distracted by office noise and already moving on to the next paper. The same goes for interviews and pitches. The interviewer usually doesn’t care about the elegance or robustness of your solution, or the complexity of how you successfully restructured an organization’s bureaucracy. They’re checking whether you can produce something that’s fast, clear, and competent enough, as the real world rarely rewards perfect work so much as usable work delivered under constraints.
Opportunities don’t wait for polish; they come and go.
Quantity generally beats quality. There’s not enough time.
Hence, I write, I share.
And I will write and share again.
No more hundred-page Google Docs that no one will ever read but me. Drafts kept safe in secrecy, protected from judgment, barred from usefulness.
Instead, words that will leave the document and enter your mind.