Iteration

or "Oops, I did it again 😅"

I’m always starting something new. There’s always an idea or project I want to start up or be involved in, usually post-haste. I’ve found myself into everything from tailoring to podcasts to early-stage activist groups as a result.

Alas, if I have any problem, it’s a lack of staying power. I tend to lack consistency with the execution of the idea or eventually diverge from the path of the project. This is especially unfortunate when I am the main source of a project’s staying power.

I have so many unfinished things trailing after me like a string of broken seashells, clicking and clacking their incompleteness in my mind. Yet, despite this, I continue to start new things. I continue to find new activities or engage people to start new projects with me.

For the longest time, I took this as a sign of an innate unseriousness and inability to focus. That is until a friend of mine showed me this:

He said to me that he thinks I’m an iterator and, as such, should not count my life in failures or incompleteness. He helped me realize that each time I start something, I am not starting from zero. Instead, I am iterating and therefore starting from knowledge/experience gained from the preceding engagement.

So where I thought I was being wishy-washy and wasting my time, someone else saw a pattern of behaviour of creation, repeating itself and learning from itself. As I do not concern myself with perfection, I am able to drop things that no longer serve or hold my interest at that time, and begin anew without (much) baggage.

Take this newsletter for instance. I have a blog, which is more of an archive now: Makings of a MiniManiac, which served me for a good long while (2012-2017). It has poetry, essays, even my one attempt at fiction.
Though I saw not publishing online (or elsewhere) between 2017 and the start of this newsletter last year as a failing of sorts, I realize now that the blog had served its purpose. It helped me find my creative voice and writing style. I learnt how to engage and manage an online audience. It introduced me to a community of fellow writers, many of whom are my friends and have gone on to do amazing things. It started out as an outlet for emotional angst for a teenager and had run its course.
With this newsletter, I don’t quite know what I’m doing either but I don’t mind. There’s always room for Version 3.0.

This is not intended to knock perfectionism. It has its place and its usefulness, especially as regards attention to detail. I however have come to realize that because I am not perfect (the first time around) does not mean I am not good. There is always room for growth and iteration is nothing if not growing.

On that note, see you when I see you! Peace and Loopy Tunes.