Perfect!..or that'll do (a classic oxymoron)

Whilst it's not limited to any one particular trade, skill, lifestyle or technology, I can use the audio/visual arts as a prime example where this is played out frequently. In earlier decades (yes I have not so recently entered my seventh!) I may have found myself cooking up a load of interesting sounds, hands feverishly moving across a Roland Jupiter 8 synthesiser, in the pursuit of that most perfect sound for the part - one that would set the world alight and contribute to the recordings ultimate success, no..even a sound that would be responsible for that records’s success; wow what arrogance indeed…

Swing the clock forward three decades sees amazingly advanced technology from those early days, but the potential creative entrapment is still as vibrant as before. Take film-making as an example where to furnish your technical portfolio with the highest end equipment afforded by your budget at the time, can catapult you into a frenzied pursuit of ultimate perfection across your specialised area. For those creative directors operating autonomously, this is very keenly felt, to ensure the limitation of excellence can only be laid at the door of one person….yourself!

So with all the very best at your fingertips we have the choice during many stages of the creative process, to internalise the above, subconsciously murmuring - ‘I have arrived, perfect!’..or..’..mm..’if only I just tweak this particular colour grade, or audio track then it will actually be better and then I will actually be happy with the result..’(thats a long internalisation but you get the point!)

Well then this begs the question, what is the professional, operational and creative line that one must draw in this vast sand of deliberation? At what point do we make that agreement with ourselves to halt and be content with what we have produced, what we are seeing and hearing…and of course the most salient consideration in this matter is, will they notice, will it make a difference to our clients and consumers?  

I return briefly to those days of slaving over a hot keyboard and can most certainly witness to the fact that after hours and hours of said pursuit of excellence, invariably I arrived back at the same place as when I started!..or even the end result moved away from that original spark and therein entered some level of deterioration resulting in associates comments like "it was working better before..." - most unfortunate and deeply unrewarding!  Those around you can be of great assistance sometimes, however beware the ‘perfection chasers’ who have some influence over your creativity - after all this is a very subjective business; what are we saying to ourselves here, its perfect but in whose eyes, in whose opinion…

Excellence in itself I believe, is a worthy ambition, but, with a myriad of mitigating factors and circumstances we have to sometimes pragmatically use whatever we have been fortunate enough to be created with, and subsequently worked on and finely honed, thus reaching that that timely creative milestone that says  - ‘that’ll do’..which can also sometimes, occasionally or often be…”perfect.”