This weekend, I released some songs I’ve been inching forward for far too long. In fact, all three were written in summer 2020, during the height of the COVID lockdown. You can listen to them here.
It’s a little depressing to do the math—three songs in two years is not a good average. Playing it out, that’s six or eight years for one album’s worth of material. But what kicks me back up is remembering that these are the first three songs I ever finished—written, recorded, and released. That’s kind of sweet.
My entire life, I’ve been starting songs. Disorganized notebooks and old iPhones can show you the proof. After all, I’m a writer and a musician; we’ve all had that great line or couplet hit us in the car or the shower.
What I never knew was how to finish them. It came naturally to write a chorus or a bridge. It’s one thing. What I didn’t know was how to keep it going—to put multiple things together in ways that add and don’t detract from each other. I was a rookie and a perfectionist and I couldn’t get past starting.
We’ve all met the type-of-guy™️ who announce they were born in the wrong decade. I’m sure they’re right, but that’s never been me. I feel pretty average in my experience and somewhat in step with the times. I’ve never been one to take cheap shots at what’s current.
That is to say that I don’t feel special being a perfectionist. Most of us are, yet it’s an inclination that cuts against any real sort of expression. The clearer it is in your head, the harder it is to get out (in any practice or application).
I’ve noticed a pattern with the Zoomers I interact with, and it’s equally displayed in my most intellectual friends. It’s the tendency to give incredible amounts of context.
People rarely just state an opinion; first, they hit you with disclaimers. They acknowledge opposing viewpoints. Then they share their opinion, admitting that their view is limited. Finally, they give caveats, clarifying what they’re not saying and pointing out any exceptions. All of this to express that their meal wasn’t really the greatest.
Let me be clear: I sit on the Millennial/Gen Z line, and I speak this way all the time.
In my view, this carefully precise communication has become a mark of the age. It’s no surprise how it happened. Digital natives incessantly consume information, which we can imagine lends to more adept argumentation. More exposure means more reps. Further, they’ve witnessed or even experienced waves of online hate when an individual’s statement wasn’t airtight—that opinion often being a post or comment out of context. See it enough times, and you’ll spare yourself the headache next time you go to speak.
Intellectuals come by it another way. Whether they’re well-read or just introspective, they seek clarity in their statements. They anticipate every rebuttal and resolve it before they’re ever questioned. Frankly, they look down on those who speak in absolute statements and lack nuance, and they don’t want to be mistaken as that.
On the surface, this is all great communication practice. Clearer is better, right? Context is good. Say what you will about Commentary TikTok, but their arguments are thorough.
In a hyper-aware culture, we can’t help but to revise our thoughts. Every comment, post, or opinion lives forever online, ready to be misunderstood by strangers. The Everythingness of Everything makes no interaction inconsequential. Thus, we ruthlessly edit all our expression. Second, third, fourth looks are the cost of doing business.
The issue is that people are contradictory. If you think twice before an offensive statement, good. However, if you can’t bring yourself to communicate at all, always couching your ideas in softening terms, you’ve lost a bit of what it means to be a person.
Sometimes, you’re allowed to say I hate that restaurant. We don’t need an eight-page exploration on the topic. You’re allowed to have an opinion and change it. Spare the thoughtfulness for the moments when it counts.
Communication should have levels. There are times you make an off-hand comment; there are times when word choice is everything. There are moments you’re speaking to a friend; there are moments when everyone is listening. Personally reclaiming these rights is requisite to any form of true expression. Communication is just one analogue.
They say that procrastination is emotional at its root. You aren’t putting off the task, you’re putting off the emotions of the decisions involved. It’s the same way that I see our obsessive self-revision. It’s not all that much that we want others to understand—that would be nice. It’s that we can’t accept to be misunderstood.
Making music isn’t my day job. My bedroom EP isn’t something special. I don’t say that in a defense-mechanism sort of way. I’m really proud to put it all out into the world. Either way, they’re the songs I had in my head, and I eventually got them out. It’s not that I don’t hear any imperfections or details that I wish I’d done differently.
Same with this newsletter. One day I’ll write an important book where every word counts, but this isn’t that. Any one essay could be awful, but at some point, I push “publish.” There’s another to write in two weeks.
If you’re caught up in the revision process—between the upward pressure to perform and the weighted blanket of perfectionism—give yourself permission. Don’t be afraid of those who kill the body but can’t kill your soul.
People don’t care as much as you think. So don’t apologize for hobby rocking.
Are you in my head?! 😆 Thank you for the healthy gut punch: “If you think twice before an offensive statement, good. However, if you can’t bring yourself to communicate at all, always couching your ideas in softening terms, you’ve lost a bit of what it means to be a person.”