Good enough

Hello, I’ve rebooted my website. Finally. After years of overthinking I said “fuck it let’s hack something together and see if it’s good enough” and you know what I think it actually might be.

It’s also mine so, you know, whatever. Mind the dust and weird hallways to nowhere. It’s a work in progress and it always will be.

This newfound attitude (and, dare I say, achievement) is an expression of something I’ve been thinking about for a bit: a sense of good enough-ness.

I detest the phrase “perfect is the enemy of good”. There’s a good sentiment in there about not over optimizing or getting trapped in a cycle of fruitless polishing or endless nitpicking. But I find that it’s often invoked by the very worst of the “bias towards action” people. In fact I often hear it said as “perfect is the enemy of done” — yikes.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about an alternative aphorism: “good enough is best”.

See, I’ve been reflecting something: on how a drive for finding “the best” not only makes us miserable (though, to be clear, I have absolutely no interest in another screed against the rat race or materialism or consumerism or whatever, as much as I might agree that those forces are terrible for us), but also traps us into a cycle of scarcity — both imagined and actual.

A quick disclaimer: I will never advocate for tolerating bullshit, or accepting garbage, or “being content with what you have”. Discontent is a signal, listen to it. I think we should always try to understand what’s driving your discontent (not all discontent requires the same response), but we should never ignore it.

With that out of the way, some thoughts on the importance of centering a sense of “good enough”.

First of all “good enough” is deeply personal in a community sense. It depends, first of all, on your conception of “Good”; second, it depends on what “enough” means in any specific context. These are questions of ethics and values, of capacity and need. These are. Questions to explore and to challenge and to discuss and to define and redefine, as individuals and in our communities.

But why is ”good enough” so important? Because it pushes back against the centralization and standardization that is a large factor in creating our current landscape of scarcity. We want to watch the best movies, read the best books, drink the best coffee, see the best shows, use the best tools. We want our projects to be “the best” — not the best they can be, which would in fact be “good enough”, but “the best”, worthy of inclusion on lists of the best whatever as defined by... whoever makes those lists.

This bias towards “the best” does a couple of things:

It puts the lists writers, taste makers, influencers, into positions of power over our own individual and community tastes. As with most things concerning power, this is a bit nuanced, but I don’t want to unpack all that right now.

It creates artificial scarcity, as “the best” is a naturally exclusive list. It’s understandable to want lists that help cut through a world with seemingly endless options, but “the best” is such a narrow frame for focusing a search. If everyone is trying to go to the can’t-miss show or hike the best trail, it’s going to get a little crowded.

It creates real scarcity, as demand for “the best” pulls support away from anything that isn’t on the list. This can weaken existing options or cause them to disappear completely, creating additional scarcity and crowding as, for example, the pool of available lunch spots shrinks.

It creates a barrier to entry to for new projects, as getting attention requires establishing yourself as the best in some way, which is diametrically opposed to the sense of play and experimentation that we need right now. There are so many ways things could be, but we need room for things to be different if we want them to ever actually be different.

It creates a barrier to starting your own project, because why start something if it’s not going to be the best? And what if you don’t have the skills to be the best? Why even try?

These are all quite interrelated, but the point is, as I see it, we need more, not more of the best. We need more space to try more things in more ways, and I see centering an ethic of good enough as a way to do that.

“Good enough” widens the field of view beyond just what’s held up as “the best” and empowers you and your community to define “good” and “enough” for yourselves. It’s a way of thinking about the coffee shop down the road from you, that might not be “the best” but that’s good enough that it becomes your go-to shop. It makes space for the band formed by kids on your block that might not be “the best” but that’s good enough to put on a good show on a stage that’s good enough to host them. It’s a reminder that a big ol’ pot of beans might be good enough for a community meal or maybe your weird hand-built website can just be good enough instead of state of the art.

Anyway, that’s probably plenty of words. Good enough.