Have we forgotten the joy of creation?
Why perfectionism and the ‘right’ answer is the enemy
The biggest revelation that I’ve had my freshman year (so far) is that there’s a huge part of me that is a humanities student. And where else to realize that than at MIT, perhaps the most prestigious STEM university in the country?
I mean, listen, don’t blame me: I had to sacrifice that humanities side of myself to lock in on STEM to get into MIT in the first place. In high school, I scoffed at the thought of reading sheet music (from eighth notes to the “every good boy deserves fudge” mnemonic), analyzing Macbeth and Hamlet, and writing essays about modern issues. Now, however, it may seem a bit crazy, but when I’m not agonizing over Green’s Theorem, I like to listen to some of my favorite artists [1] and pretend that I’m the one playing the music, strumming the guitar, and hitting the high notes. When I’m not thinking about Le Chatelier’s Principle, I play scenes on YouTube from some of my favorite shows [2] and act out the main character’s dialogue, pretending I’m the Doctor trying to stop the Zygons and humanity from waging war with each other, or I’m Josuke stumbling onto his final confrontation with Kira.
I decided that I should give myself the chance to do the things I’ve daydreamt about for a while, since I never had the chance to in high school. This led me to join MIT Musical Theatre Guild’s Rocky Horror Show production, take Electronic Music Composition I (21M.361), and write for The Tech. When the constraints disappeared and the chains [3] were cut, I immediately went to explore territories I’ve never even bothered to glance at before. At the time, I never really knew why. And, to be honest, I’m still trying to figure out why I immediately began doing these things in college. Perhaps there was something within me that wanted to be let out?
One afternoon, while working on a simple composition with my music teacher on a cool music creation website, we recreated the Amen break so frequently sampled in many rap songs. [4] All I needed was a hi-hat on every eighth note, some syncopation on the snare, and kick drums; the familiar beat blasted out of the laptop after I executed the code! You can’t even picture the beaming smile I had on my face once I realized that I had created THE Amen break. My imagination went wild.
But later that night, I was distraught! I had tried any drum beat I could think of, any progression I could play on a MIDI synthesizer. None of it sounded good to me. The melodies led into nothing, the chords were dissonant, and the drum beat didn’t have the same “oomph” of the Amen break.
At some point during the music composition process, I asked myself, “What is the best possible sequence of chords to complement the melody? What is the right combination of notes to complement the chords? What is the correct answer to any of this? If there was a formula to generate the correct tunes, had I been plugging and chugging wrong this whole time?”
“This wouldn’t be the next Magdalena Bay, no,” I thought. “It wasn’t the next Daft Punk. It wasn’t the next modern electronic music masterpiece.” Then, I asked myself, “What was the point?”
As a result, I procrastinated endlessly on the assignment. The wonder faded away. Perhaps, I feared I wasn’t good enough, so I avoided the work by not doing it at all. For a whole month, I created nothing. Nothing at all. Instead, I waited. Waited for the spirit of Mozart or Beethoven or Jeff Buckley to possess me to make masterpieces. Waited, constantly, for the right moment to create. For a whole month, I had forgotten the joy of creation.
To beginners like me, the world may seem a bit cruel. Every time I play the guitar, for every string that buzzes and mutes, any chord I mess up, I hear the sneering laughter of a thousand listeners. Every time I write an article, for every poorly structured paragraph or poorly articulated idea, I feel the judgemental glares of a thousand readers.
Going through this whole process made me realize something. In our constant pursuit of the correct equations and correct algorithms and correct answers on our psets and midterms, we box ourselves within unrealistic cages of expectations. As a result, we stand there, paralyzed, subconsciously trying to look for the “right formula” so we may proceed with the next notes, words, and strokes, afraid of the big red X — the thought of making a mistake.
Don’t believe me? Try composing a song. I did. I bet the first question that will come to mind is: what’s the best method for coming up with the music? In other words, what’s a formula I can follow to get the results I need? Knowing MIT students, many of you will probably be thinking about these questions and mulling over them for a long time.
But the truth is there is no such “formula.” Maybe in STEM, correct answers and formulas are the name of the game, but in music, theater, reportage — art — those don’t really exist.
When I tell you that the first four chords of Rises the Moon by Liana Flores are Am7, Am6, Am7, and C7, do you think the artist followed some sort of formula to come up with that sequence of chords? Sure, in music creation, your choices are limited to what ”sounds good” in Western music theory, but a near-infinite number of choices are being made anyways; it’s almost as if music creation is random and arbitrary!
Sure enough, there is music that is totally random but still sounds good! Brian Eno’s Music for Airports was made by recording a few piano notes and creating loops of varying lengths; when played together, the out-of-sync tapes create different musical phrases every time. Another example of musical notes played from every pixel is an instance of Conway’s Game of Life.
The point is that there is no “right” answer in creating music — there is no formula that determines the best note that comes next in a melody or chord. This applies to any art form! When Vincent Van Gogh made Starry Night, he didn’t plug and chug into a formula to determine his next stroke. The same goes for me: in writing this article, I’m not using any specific format. I’m just going with whatever feels right to me. And that’s fine!
I think perfection and the concept of “correctness” were made by schmucks to prevent the rest of us from making art. That’s right — perfection is a conspiracy meant to paralyze those who want to express themselves. If the words they write, the chords they strum, and the strokes they paint aren’t a part of the next Mona Lisa, they just throw it out! And if people are this paralyzed, they end up not taking any step at all.
Even I, dear reader, am spending a lot of time trying to figure out the most perfect way I can convey how I feel in this article. I spent weeks mulling over the details before saying, fuck it, I’m just gonna start writing. And the fingers… the fingers sure do type fast without the heavy burden of perfection. But once you forget about the ideal version of your creation in your head and start actually creating instead, you’ll find that you’ll get a lot closer to that ideal version than if you just constantly stressed about it.
Lastly and most importantly of all, perfection is what makes you forget about the joy of creation. You spend hours stressing about the right answer and getting frustrated when that imaginary big red X appears in your head. Suddenly, you hate making music, you hate writing, and you hate painting because the stress and frustration makes you feel like absolute shit.
But if you had just remembered the joy of creation — the wonder of experiencing the process, the pride of finishing a project, the joy of holding your work in your hands, the feeling of realizing the artwork is an extension of yourself — maybe you would’ve come back to the canvas and started painting again.
Look, if you’re stressing about not being good enough to make your first song, your first poem, your first article, all I’m saying is: shut up and start creating. If all you do is daydream about being a rockstar, a painter, a writer, or an actor, then a daydreamer is all you will ever be and your ideas, and by extension, yourself, will remain stuck in your head for the rest of eternity.
But if you gather the strength and the courage to make dissonant chords, create messy paintings, write imperfect paragraphs, everything else will follow from that first step. It might take a few, a hundred, or a thousand iterations and practice sessions, but eventually, you will realize that every chord, every drum beat, and every melody is simply a reflection of you. Every one of those characters in a play you act out, every one of those paragraphs in an essay you write, every one of those sculptures you mold… all of them are extensions of you. One day, you will stare at your creations and realize that you are simply surrounded by pieces of you. You will then realize that you are the most you that you have ever been.
In the words of the great Kurt Vonnegut: “Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside of you, to make your soul grow.”
(PS: I’m working on a cover album of Sweet Trip’s You Will Never Know Why. That’s the art I’m practicing!)
Such as Panchiko and Magdalena Bay
Doctor Who and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, specifically
Better known by its more terrifying name: the college application system
This sample is especially prominent in breakcore, a genre I listen to a LOT; I recommend “SR20DET” by Blksmiith.