(no subject)

[drydem]

After a discussion with bneuensc I realized that I am having trouble escaping the mindset from Sunday. Sunday at the kingdom game, I played an individual of complete perspective, who took into account all possible variables in an attempt to understand everything that was going on around him. He had an uncanny ability to observe patterns in the world around him and used that ability to allow him to act intelligently, efficiently and effectively.
Today, I am having problems divorcing this perspective from my own life. In thinking about my academic life, I am increasingly convinced that I know nothing. I have been thinking about my paper on LiveJournal icons, which I like to think is good in some respects, but utterly fails to take into account the work of Roman Jakobson, which, now that I've been reminded of Jakobson, is entirely necessary to displaying the ways in which icons are deployed. It just makes me feel dumb, like I've failed to take into account information that I've been told before, if only in passing. I feel like I don't understand ideas that I want to incorporate more fully into my own work, like Lacan's Real/Symbolic/Imaginary divides, or de Saussure's concepts of language, or Foucault's notions of power. I feel dumb.
And, to some degree, I realize that I am holding myself to an unfair standard of perfection, that certainly nobody expects me to understand absolutely everything and express it with pure clarity. But sometimes I wish they did. Looking at my Master's thesis now, I want to burn it and start over. I want to take all I've learned in the past two years and completely rewrite the damn thing, taking into account a better understanding of formalism and the ethnography of speaking. I feel ashamed that I thought it was good work, I feel like I have shown the faculty how dumb I am by even suggesting that it was good enough for a M.A.
I am a perfectionist in some ways. I feel that in every situation there is a perfection for which we should strive. If you aren't trying to do it completely perfectly, then why are you trying at all? But in the end, I need to accept the fact that I am not omniscient and move on.

Comments

[bneuensc.livejournal.com]

Now imagine taking something you wrote five years ago and having it be published and put on bookstore shelves where some poor bastard might pay money for the thing instead of just giving you a degree, and you'll have my periodic panic attacks over Doppelganger.

[drydem.livejournal.com]

the thing is, I feel less self-conscious about my creative work, because I feel that to some degree, I cannot control how well I write as much as I can control how much I've read.

[bneuensc.livejournal.com]

True, but on the other hand, the creative work is highly personal in a way that academic stuff isn't. So instead of it being "gah, I didn't read enough, and now everybody will know," it's "gah, I'm an idiot, and now everybody will know." Which is why Doppelganger has me more nervous/self-critical than, say, my honors thesis does.

[saracariad.livejournal.com]

I understand what you mean. I'm also having trouble caring now about the end of the semester. I mean, I played someone who was in the running for the queen of north america! That makes me feel little. Christ! how am I supposed to care about finishing a research paper if I'm thinking of how to better the continent?
:)
and for the record, I think you're brilliant, Ben.
-Sara-

[ninja-turbo.livejournal.com]

Dude, it's okay. You know lots of stuff. Feeling like you know nothing is a display of wisdom, and is good if it invigorates you to pursue more knowledge and apply it broadly to increase your understanding of the universe.

And don't trash your Master's Thesis. It's inevitable to look back and say 'I know better now.' Think of it instead as the first step in a lifelong relationship with the scholarship about a complex of traditions you enjoy.

[tooth-and-claw.livejournal.com]

VARICH! Get *out* of my friend's head! Jeezum beezum, you might have ruined your own life with your enourmous standard of perfection, but don't you *dare* try to feed off Ben's.

I'm warning you.

[moonandserpent.livejournal.com]

Man, I SO wanted to RP with you, but there was no way in Hell, Duke "I'm really fucking shady" Rococco was going to chat up Captain Pattern.

[kniedzw.livejournal.com]

Captain Pattern's great! You're just a weenie. :)

[moonandserpent.livejournal.com]

Hey, everyone knows you're evil, anyway.

[saracariad.livejournal.com]

What? How DARE you accuse my uncle of being evil! *blinks big violet eyes* Uncle Meilge, you aren't evil, are you?

As if I know anything about taking things seriously...

[austenebrous.livejournal.com]

... but I can't help but think that striving for perfection, excellence, or acceptance into some elite is really for the birds. Free yourself from ego, and take pride in your sense of self (not some externally validated perception held by those you've impressed).
Be yourself, find your niche, and fight those ever-bothersome urges to obsess.
At the same time, don't be too proud to revise or publish corrections to things, whatever the medium. Look at Moorcock; he's thouroughly revised things in re-publication and codefication of his stories (which originally appeared in British SF mags in the 60s and 70s). Sometimes things are a little more complicated, and may be motivated only by perfectionistic tendencies; be vigilant against such things lest your original expression be compromised for the sake of indulging your neurosis.

all the best,

A.