The Lure of Perfection is Powerful

— but really you just gotta do the thing.

Hey folks and friends,

Those who have known me for many years have asked me the same question again and again — “When will you release an album already?”

It’s a fair question. I’ve been performing music for almost ten years now and I’ve been writing my own songs since probably 2017, but in all that time I’ve barely released anything. This drives a lot of my friends (and myself tbh) to frustration. They honestly love my music and have been getting more than a little annoyed with me that they don’t have copies of my songs, whether it’s streaming, Bandcamp, or even a physical CD. They would like to be able to play my music for themselves. Maybe even (*gasp*) share it with other people.

“I want to share your music with other people,” says one of my closest friends quite regularly, point-blank, directly to my face. “But it’s not available anywhere.”

“So true,” I say. “I should fix that.” I proceed to not fix that.

Another friend, that I see at a yearly folk music retreat, has been asking me for an album of my music since 2018.

“I’m gonna record something this fall!” I say every year, one hundred percent believing myself that this will be the time I follow through. “I’ll have something for you next summer!”

The next summer comes. The same friend asks me if I have an album yet.

“I’m gonna record something this fall!” I say, continuing to delude myself. The album continues to not exist. My friend continues on, music-less. The cycle repeats endlessly.

“One must imaging that someday Sisyphus will release his damn EP.” - Albert Camus, probably.

In my defense, I have tried to record my music a couple times. One time I even enlisted the help of some friends and friends-of-friends to get down four or five songs. Unfortunately, that happened on February 27, 2020. Just a couple of weeks later, NYC shut down, I relocated to my hometown in PA “just for a couple weeks,” and the album didn’t ever end up really coming together.

It would be very convenient to blame the pandemic for this turn of events. In fact, I often have! But you and I know that that’s not the truth (because you’ve already read the subject line of this newsletter and you are very good at context clues).

The truth is that I have a crippling addiction to perfection. That’s the real reason I kept not recording anything. I kept telling myself that I had to wait until my guitar playing was perfect, until my voice was perfect, until the songs were perfect, until the timing of the world was perfect.

“The lure of perfection is powerful, Captain.” - Seven of Nine, Star Trek: Voyager

But honestly, I’ve gotten to a point in my life where I’m… kinda over it?

Maybe it’s finally realizing how a desire for perfection is really rooted in fear, maybe it’s knowing how many other creatives struggle with this exact same thing but keep pushing forward anyway, maybe it’s seeing a gaggle of idiot sycophants rise to the highest echelons of society despite a complete lack of any qualifications, but I’m kinda tired of continually hamstringing my own happiness and success because I’m too busy holding myself to ridiculous standards that benefit nobody. Least of all, myself.

As Brené Brown wrote in her book, The Gifts of Imperfection:

“Perfectionism is not the same thing as striving to be your best. Perfectionism is the belief that if we live perfect, look perfect, and act perfect, we can minimize or avoid the pain of blame, judgement, and shame. It’s a shield. It’s a twenty-ton shield that we lug around thinking it will protect us when, in fact, it’s the thing that’s really preventing us from flight.”

Entering My ‘Fuck It, We Ball’ Phase

“The lure of ‘fuck it, we ball’ is powerful, Captain.” - Me, just now.

Two weekends ago, I recorded six whole songs (6!) at a friend’s home recording studio. I went in with the objective of, “I’m tired of not having these songs recorded, they deserve to be heard and I want them to be out in the world.” This album didn’t need to win awards, it just needed to exist. An album that actually existed, that people could actually listen to, would make me happier than waiting for a magnum opus ever could.

And then a funny thing happened.

At the last minute, I decided to record a short little song that I wrote last summer about moths. It’s based on a latin palindrome, “In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni,” which can be translated as “We enter the circle at night and are consumed by fire” or “We turn in circles in the night and are devoured by fire.” It doubles as a riddle, describing the behavior of moths being drawn towards light in the midst of darkness. I didn’t originally plan to include it in this batch of recordings but wound up doing it anyway because my partner encouraged me to.

And guess what? It came out great. So great in fact, that I’ve decided to organize the whole album around it.

Instead of just being a collection of songs I like singing, now I’ve been inspired to create an album that centers around this strange, mystical hymn about moths. I keep thinking of it as an album for the summer solstice — hazy summer days, warm summer nights, ripening fruit, the cycles of nature. And I probably wouldn’t have gotten that idea without hearing the recording played back to me. Letting go and just trying something wound up being the best thing I could have done.

“The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart.” - These moths, probably.

Anyway, I’m really excited about it. I’m excited to keep working on it, I’m excited for when I’ll finally be able to put it out into the world, and I’m excited for when you’ll all finally get to hear it.

Much love,
Sarah