Ready to start.

A couple guys I know from work have a band. They're really good, but at the rate they're going, you'll never, ever get to hear them. They've been recording their demo for at least as long as I've worked at Bethel (over a year now), with no sign of finishing anything. Whenever I ask about the recording, the response always falls along the lines of "Well, we WERE getting really close to putting the finishing touches on this song, but we still have some ideas to make it better, so we're doing some more recording." These dudes have a home studio set up, so they have all the recording time they could ever want - often times a huge stepping stone for a young band with little cash on hand.

Granted, there are a lot of benefits to a situation like that, but I wonder if it's not actually as ideal as one would think. No financial limitations on studio time, and no fans immediately clamoring for more. They have all the time in the world to make an amazing record, but it may not happen at all.

What could be interpreted as having an unwavering attention to detail and nuance could just as easily be a crippling fear that this will never be as good as I want it to be.

As I mentioned awhile back, I used to be (okay, still sort of am) a perfectionist. I didn't even know how to start when I began work on a project, because I didn't think it would be good enough in the end. There is always the worry that once others see it, the jig is up and people know what I really am, or at least my limitations.

Sometimes I get so tied up with wanting to be at the front of the pack that I don't even bother entering the race.

I need to love what I'm doing first - this can't come from anyone else. In some ways, I don't even want to factor what others are doing into how I perceive my own work. It would be far more desirable to sail out towards the horizon and risk crashing into a wall at the end of my abilities than to consign myself to a certain distance, because that's all I perceive myself to be capable of.

"A ship in the harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for." -John Shedd