"Aesthetic Arrest"

While reading

Framing Faith

by Matt Knisely, I discovered something about myself. The answer to a question I have asked myself for the last two years.

There are those blogs. The ones that I click, and my heart stops for a little second because I think I've found the most beautiful corner of the internet. And it get's better every blogpost I scroll through and every feature I explore. Their images, personal writing, and entire design makes my heart flutter. I'm always in a fluster of awe, inspiration, and a spark of jealousy. They make sharing struggle, heartache, and confusion so beautiful. Their images fit perfectly into their words, ideas, and thoughts. 

There I sit. In awe, wondering how I can achieve a blog anywhere close to that. 

"As artists and communicators, we are passionate about the "niceness" of our delivery. We find ourselves constantly in "aesthetic arrest" in a perfectionistic culture as we try to achieve beauty in everything we do. But sooner or later, every person trying to create something comes face-to-face with and battles the vicious monster known as perfectionism." (Knisley, Page 37)

Technically I'm self diagnosed, but judging from my frustration with my blog, its safe to say I suffer from "aesthetic arrest". I have come face to face with perfectionism, and it's time for battle.

I intend to win. 

For those that know me, you know how I love to tell stories. The Lord has honored that love and put me in the wrong place at the perfect time over and over again. 

The moment I locked my keys in my car twice, faceplanted in the middle of the street, paddled across a lake on a tube, when I sank a sailboat, dropped my phone in a squatty toliot, laughed at the wrong moment, thrown up over Titanic, and the plethra of dramatic car stories including countless firetrucks, laughter, screaming, and a smoking engine. 

One of the best feelings in the world is to see someone else moved by a story I've told. Moved to tears, to laughter, to thought.

I desire to share every thought, story, and image perfectly.  To stir emotion and provoke thought with every blogpost. 

I just won't share unless I think I can do it perfectly. This issue comes into play usually when writing in my notebook filled with blog ideas. After scribbling a couple of pages while sitting at a coffee shop with images importing, exporting, and uploading, you would probably watch my face turn to frustration while I take a sip of my drink, and than rip a paper straight out of my notebook. This paper will never finds its way to the keyboard... because it just didn't pass - the words weren't right, the idea wasn't good enough, the photos didn't fit, or "I just wasn't feeling it." 

That moment would be the peak of my "aesthetic arrest". 

 I want to overcome perfectionism and accept that I'm not perfect, my stories won't be shared in what I deem "the perfect way", nor my images. My standard has become what I see in other's blogs, images, and writings. My standard should be to please the Lord. To honor the blessings and challenges He has given me. 

If I refuse to share because its never aesthetically pleasing enough- I may go a lifetime without experiencing and sharing my passion.