The artist who aims at perfection in everything achieves it in nothing.

-Eugene Delacroix

Should we strive for creative perfection? What is perfection, anyway? The reason we create is because we are moved to do so by an internal drive that energizes us to be enthusiastic, self-challenging, and curious about the possibilities of what we seek to accomplish. We have a certain confidence that we can originate something new and bring it to a satisfying completion. We strive to improve our creations as much as we possibly can during our work processes – but achieving perfection as the prime motivating goal, can be both unrealistic and stultifying.

We try, of course, to transform our creative abilities into our creative perfectabilities – and we do so as well as we possibly can, but it is important to realize that our ideal of perfection will probably be flawed –  and that is a good thing – because creativity is enhanced by unplanned routes.

The desire to achieve perfection, can become a creativity cruncher with doubt and self-criticism being the dominant emotions. You create because you just have to. Often, we persevere for years and years before we feel we have mastered our skills – and frequently, we will do so in unexpected ways, especially if we allow ourselves to be on a journey of discovery and growth of our creative perfectabilities, rather than seeing the achievement of perfection itself as the only aim.

We need to embrace our flaws and know that in fact, they are desirable; they provide interesting detours into our art. Persian carpets have intentional imperfections. It is part of the artistic visions and the endeavors of the creators. It is important to create alone at any given or ungiven opportunity because the more we do so, the more adept we become as creators.

Practicing and working with others, however, is also a valuable route to discovering both our own creative abilities and the abilities of others. By learning from each other, we add to our knowledge base, and together, we can create the works of many. In fact, collaborations today, play a large role in the workforce. Many projects require different minds, specializations and abilities.

So find opportunities to combine your individual creative essence with the abilities of others because those are valuable paths to your own creative growth. In the same way that Spunktaneous of THE WORLD OF GLIMPSE is advised to develop his own greenessence – his own sparkability – and combine this with the abilities of the other Glimpsibles, so is it a good idea for you to combine your own creativity with the work of others in creative collaborations. In doing so, you will learn from others, and like Spunktaneous, you will advance your own creative sparkability – but never let that desire for perfection dampen your creative spark.