Two years ago I bought a notebook. It had a soft, sage green cover and an elastic that wraps around the edge of its pages. I got it to document my university years and spent months dreaming about how casually artistic the journal would be. Before I pulled off the cling wrap, I had written out and revised the thoughts I would later transfer to the first page. Two years later, it is the only thing I have written in the 27-dollar notebook.
I have never enjoyed filling the first couple of pages, especially when it comes to writing with pen and paper. Whatever excitement comes with new beginnings is infinitely washed out by the pressure to define the purpose of the notebook and to perfect it.
Everything I write is calculated. Two parts personal – with my soul bared in black and white – and one part performative – ever mindful of my future audience and the critics that will dictate my opportunities. There are 32 notebooks on my shelf, and I am not being pessimistic when I say they are all half empty.
Even though I’m not planning on anyone seeing what I write, draw or press between the pages, I have convinced myself that I need to impress an imaginary audience with my effortless genius. The best plan would probably be to get over my constant need for control, but it is so much easier to avoid that and type up what I will eventually copy down.
Well-intentioned friends always tell me that perfection is an unattainable standard. They encourage me to stop putting pressure on myself because “I’m only human.” To which I think, “Thank you! I wish I had thought of that sooner! Maybe it would have saved me from my crippling inability to get anything done!”
I am trying my best to be lousy. I have been dipping my notebooks in water and using the first page to test pens. I scrawl down ideas in the dark and transcribe them in the morning.
I know my experience is not unique, but I am begging you to make a mess. Find a hobby that you are bad at and commit to being truly awful at it for the rest of your life. You do not owe this world a flawless existence. Compose cliche-ridden parodies and rhyme lyrics with themselves. Print out the first draft. Spill your favourite tea on the sheet music and purposefully play the wrong chords.
Recreation does not need to become a side hustle. Find love in creased papers and packed lunches. Make the ugliest artwork you have ever seen and hang it on your wall. Better yet, tape it haphazardly. Stop falling for photo dumps and loathing over Tik Tok’s ‘days in the life.’ The more you curate your life for an imaginary audience, the more you will chip away at yourself. Write down every little idea without discrimination, lest you lose the beginning of genius. Cross words out. Write the worst poem imaginable. Now start over and do it again. Create a space that is only yours to enjoy, and do it because it makes you happy.
The newest trend is to be effortlessly cool. You will tell yourself to curate. Was I always doomed to fall down the rabbit hole of self glamourization, or did I seal my fate when I started planning my Instagram grid? Do not succumb to fabricated authenticity and subtle filters. Stop searching for the perfect study vlog. You are caught in an exhaustive pattern of performing for an online audience, but you’re the one holding the camera. You are your own captor.
Keep taking selfies whenever you cry. Take some when you feel the need to hide. Look at photos with too-toothy grins. Do not rob yourself of the human experience for the sake of a life more palatable. Who would I have been without the internet? It is fun to have an audience in your head and walk yourself through unrecorded YouTube videos, but it is no way to live your entire life.
Buy a copy of your favourite book for no more than five dollars. Write your name on the inside cover. Do it again. Try different pens and copy your parents’ handwriting. Mark your favourite quotes. Circle them and while the ink is fresh, highlight over it so everything smears. Do not coordinate the colours. Break the spine so it falls open to your favourite pages.
When I paint my nails, I will intentionally smudge and chip them. Control feels empowering and demoralizing, and I knock myself down so I can feel strong. I cannot escape the cycle because being messy turns into my persona. Did I ever find solace in a life worn in, or have I fooled myself into romanticizing yet another niche? No matter how short I bite my nails, I still find dirt under them.
I am not sure if I am anyone if I cannot be perfect. I have been trying my best to write badly. I have been working hard to make mistakes in front of others and resist the urge to explain them away. I am trying to stop posing for the invisible audience I fear, but rather to get my ideas down on paper. I am trying my best to do worse. As I age, I am starting to realize that is the closest to perfection I will ever reach.