Must. Be. Prefect!!! [correction - perfect]

Insight--

Two posts and 30 revisions into blogging I'm detecting a strong desire to be perfect (and thus perfectly understood?).

This is maddening. I need to let go and let it be what it is.

Which brings me to the temptation to put my best foot forward. Does anyone else feel like there's this edited version of ourselves we try to put forward-- be it chatting or IMing or blogging?

Like we can airbrush our warts out and be the brightest, most observant, ironic, suave, mysterious, romantic, tragic-romantic, tragic-gothic, tragic-gothic-roamantic, spam-spam-gothic and spam...

So when we eventually fail, is the failure greater for all the effort to be somebody else? Maybe it's just truer.

Not to be confused with failing in the quest to be something better. What's that Teddy quote...

"...because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but he who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great devotion; who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails while daring greatly, knows that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls, who know neither victory nor defeat."

-- Theodore Roosevelt, 26th US President

Yeah, I dig that.