The Shackles of Perfectionism and a Book

I have thoughts. Lots and lots of them. Things I want to share. Things nobody on earth probably cares about. But I am a perfectionist. And so I don't blog. I don't write down the thoughts. Because as any perfectionist knows, it's not worth doing something unless you do it as correct as possible with perfect grammar, punctuation, choice of vocabulary etc. But I want to throw those shackles off. I am not going to type this in a word document first and edit it to pieces before posting. I am not going to read it seventeen times making minuscule changes. I am just going post it and hopefully enjoy the freedom of not spending an hour and 45 minutes on a a blog post - the freedom that non-perfectionists enjoy everyday.

I have been wanting to share about a book that I finished a while back, but in the meantime I have finished three more books. (Huge victories for a slow reader). Combine perfectionism and procrastination in one person and NOTHING WILL EVER GET DONE. At least not the non-essentials. There is lots of clean laundry, yummy meals, scrubbed showers and a new dry creek bed to direct water flow around one corner of the house...but there are no blog posts. They are not essential. This is also why I rarely read fiction. And if I do, it is to catch up on some classic I should have read in school. (This is not a blast against fictions lovers, just an explanation of how I explain things about me in my own head. Isn't that what a blog is all about?).

And so, here is one of the books I have finished. In fact, finished last night. East of Eden by John Steinbeck. It was sad, disheartening, overly philosophical and effective for squishing spiders (599 pages). It's also epic, fantastic, phenomenal and brilliant according to everything I had heard about it. But I didn't like it. I loved The Pearl and so it seemed natural to try another Steinbeck. But now I feel like I need to read the Cliff Notes or something to get all the smaller symbolism I'm sure I missed. (Don't worry, the whole Cain and Abel parallel was not lost on me). Or perhaps I would have been better off just stumbling upon it without anyone else's opinions or reviews. That was how I read The Pearl and  Robinson Crusoe by Defoe. Anyhow, it's done. And somewhere I hope my 11th grade English teacher is smiling to herself and not knowing why, but perhaps it's because somewhere in the world one of her former pupils has read all the way through a brick of literature without being cajoled by a demanding class syllabus. For you, Ms. Farley...thanks for dragging us by the hand through The Grapes of Wrath.