Let Us Now Praise Imperfection

Miles Davis famously said, “Do not fear mistakes. There are none.”?

If you create for a living – say you are a writer, videographer, designer, or any other creative -- I think you get that. But not everyone does.

Mistakes make us real. Human. Relatable. Mistakes and imperfections can make an outcome even better, too.?

I was just reminded of that truth while I was reading Set the Night on Fire: Living, Dying, and Playing Guitar with the Doors, by Robby Krieger, one of the greatest guitarists in rock and roll history. He makes a brilliant observation about the recording of the Doors’ first album in 1967. Many critics rank The Doors among the best debut albums of all time – indeed one of the best albums, period. Here is how Robby reflects on the making of the masterpiece:

If you tap along with the tempo at the end of “Light My Fire,” you’ll notice that after the instruments drop out John [Densmore] comes back in on the three instead of the four. On the last note of “The Crystal Ship,” I play a minor chord and Ray [Manzarek] plays a major chord when we technically should’ve been hitting the same notes. On the first chorus of “Break on Through,” Jim [Morrison] sings “Break on through to the other side” three times, but on the second chorus he sings it only twice. If our first album were recorded today, John’s snare would be quantized to match perfectly with a tempo grid, the notes Ray and I hit would be pitch-corrected, and Jim’s vocals would be digitally cut and pasted to fit a more uniform structure. But we had no computers, and only four tracks to work with. Organ and guitar on the first track, drums and piano bass on the second, vocals on the third, overdubs on the fourth. No click track, no Auto-Tune. Technology has opened up so many creative possibilities and streamlined the recording process in miraculous ways, but the ability to endlessly mix and tweak and fine-tune everything to death has created way too many albums that sound way too perfect. I’m glad we recorded all the Doors albums when and how we did. The imperfections are what make them feel alive.

On a much lesser scale, I can think of many examples from my own life. Just a few days ago, I was shooting an Instagram video of an oncoming train. The train made a deafening roar that got louder as it got closer. As the train rushed by, it kicked up a gust of wind that caused my hand to shake. An imperfection, right? But when I replayed the video, I noticed the little jiggle made the video better. It felt like the viewer was being pulled right into that wind gust and feeling the impact of the train.

I have written many of my best blog posts and columns under tight deadlines. When I look back at them, I can see the imperfections, such as an insight I failed to make in the rush of going live. I don’t go back and fix them unless I spot an embarrassing typo (and yes I commit those) that distracts the reader. But I don’t rewrite sentences that could have been constructed better or revise my thinking. The same conditions that created the imperfections also made for a more cogent analysis because I did not have time to overthink it.??Also, I want readers to get an authentic snapshot of what I wrote at that time.

Acting in the Bristol Renaissance Faire, I have made too many mistakes to count. In fact, because of the nature of improvisational acting, the only thing I can be certain of when I act is that I will make mistakes. Anyone who does improv understands that mistakes create opportunities. (For more insight about that, please read my blog post “How to Fail Early and Often.”)

Anyone who creates content in the corporate world can relate to the problem that results when a team of perfectionists tries to get every detail just right. All too often I have seen talented teams strangle the life out of a deliverable by constantly tweaking the content. By the time the content goes live, it’s not only lifeless but also stale in the fast-moving digital world.

I’ll take imperfect and interesting over perfect and soulless anytime.