Quote of The Week, Monahan - 3/2/08

The best baseball players, guys with batting averages of 300, still fail 7 out of 10 times. The best scientists fail more than average scientists. The best films have miles of outtakes on the editing room floor. Get over this desire for perfection. It can’t be achieved.

-Tom Monahan

Sort of a trite piece of advice, but one that is too-easily brushed aside.

I hate failing. Absolutely fucking loathe it.

Funny thing is, I haven't really failed yet, at least not in the fall-flat-on-your-face, embarassingly-horrible, God-shoot-me-now sort of way. I think. But I haven't hit anything out of the park. Everything I've done this semester has been on the borderline between good and ordinary. And that's not good enough.

And "good enough" isn't even enough when you want to be straight nasty at what you do (to amend Jay Chiat's famous words).

Basically I've been coasting. I've been doing alright to get by, nothing to get yelled at, nothing to get really excited over. In fact, I haven't had that excited, I-can't-wait-to-show-this-to-the-next-person-I-see feeling in about 6 months. And the last time I had that feeling, what I ended up showing got killed.

You need to have a tough skin in this business for a reason.

I just feel deflated, like I'm not doing anything worthwhile. Like every time I sit down to write an ad I've forgotten how to do it, as if there really is a way. I keep forgetting that there is no way. And I'm frustrated.

Had a meeting with Coz a couple weeks ago and pretty much told him the same thing. He told me that no one hits homeruns every time, that the best you can do is try to and hope that you do. Pretty comforting actually, coming from a man who normally makes you want to crawl into a hole and cover your head with your hands when you present work.

Moral of the story: I don't want nor will I ever get perfection.

I want book pieces.

dubs. out.