Ella Bassey

An 1843 short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The Birth-Mark,” reads like a fable about such violence. A “man of science” named Aylmer is so determined to remove his wife’s only imperfection, a hand-shaped birthmark on her cheek, that he ends up killing her. (The story offers a dark inversion of the ancient Greek myth of Pygmalion, a sculptor so dis... See more

believing that you can achieve perfection as an actor feels vain...thinking that you are capable of creating something completely unique and original performance wise just doesn't feel attainable.

the more i thought about it, the more i understood what he meant. there is ego there, in holding onto this belief that you are even capable of creating s... See more

John Henryism involves pressure not just to be good but to be impossibly good—superhuman, better than a machine, whether the machine is literal (the steam drill) or figurative (systemic racism).

if we believe that the worst version of ourselves is the true one, we’re protected from being ambushed by our own inadequacy. Better to overestimate our flaws than to fail to see them in the first place.

When you believe the work before you is the single piece that will forever define you, it’s difficult to let it go. The urge for perfection is overwhelming. It’s too much. We are frozen, and sometimes end up convincing ourselves that discarding the entire work is the only way to move forward. The only art the world gets to enjoy is from creators wh

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