Finality
So I'm sitting here at my computer, doing nothing productive.
I have several things I need to get done, and can't bring myself to do them, though I would feel so much better if I did, and I know that ultimately what I have left to do is nothing compared to the vast amount of work I've already put in. But what I have left to do is finish it, make it done, and as much as I want it to be over, that means it is final. No more changes can be made, no more improvement.
With a burlesque act, or any performing art really, one can always make changes. Very few of my acts are unchanging. Over time I revise costuming, timing, dance moves, sometimes even concept. Yes someone might videotape it, and that version is thus recorded, but that fact doesn't inhibit further changes. I still have control over the act and can always revise it to correct flaws, make improvements, or just because I'm bored with the way it was after doing it that way for years. It remains mine in the sense that I retain the power to alter it.
Writing is different. Not writing on a blog, where I have the option to edit again and again, even after "publication." But articles, papers, applications etc. are very different. Once I submit this I have to let go of it, admit that it is done and try not to see the flaws and weaknesses that still exist. It is one of the reasons I hate to look back at things I wrote long ago--I see my mistakes but there is nothing I can do to change them. The writing becomes frozen at a point in time and is no longer mine to alter. Although they are my words they are no longer mine to control.
I find that kind of finality difficult. It seems false in a sense; unrelated to reality and the world, where we can and must constantly change and revise ourselves. To be fixed in a certain form, unable to alter it, learn from experience, develop new interests is a horrifying thought for me, and I hate my words to suffer the same fate.
I have several things I need to get done, and can't bring myself to do them, though I would feel so much better if I did, and I know that ultimately what I have left to do is nothing compared to the vast amount of work I've already put in. But what I have left to do is finish it, make it done, and as much as I want it to be over, that means it is final. No more changes can be made, no more improvement.
With a burlesque act, or any performing art really, one can always make changes. Very few of my acts are unchanging. Over time I revise costuming, timing, dance moves, sometimes even concept. Yes someone might videotape it, and that version is thus recorded, but that fact doesn't inhibit further changes. I still have control over the act and can always revise it to correct flaws, make improvements, or just because I'm bored with the way it was after doing it that way for years. It remains mine in the sense that I retain the power to alter it.
Writing is different. Not writing on a blog, where I have the option to edit again and again, even after "publication." But articles, papers, applications etc. are very different. Once I submit this I have to let go of it, admit that it is done and try not to see the flaws and weaknesses that still exist. It is one of the reasons I hate to look back at things I wrote long ago--I see my mistakes but there is nothing I can do to change them. The writing becomes frozen at a point in time and is no longer mine to alter. Although they are my words they are no longer mine to control.
I find that kind of finality difficult. It seems false in a sense; unrelated to reality and the world, where we can and must constantly change and revise ourselves. To be fixed in a certain form, unable to alter it, learn from experience, develop new interests is a horrifying thought for me, and I hate my words to suffer the same fate.
posted by Delirium Tremens at 4:58 PM
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