Letters by Burk

Letters by Burk

Perfectly Imperfect

Almost done

Burk's avatar
Burk
Oct 11, 2025
∙ Paid
2
1
Share
Photo by Taitopia Render on Unsplash

There’s a certain beauty in things that are never quite finished.

A sentence that ends mid-thought. A painting missing the final brushstroke. A blog draft that sits in your Notes app.

Most people think “unfinished” means “failure.”

If something isn’t wrapped neatly in a bow, it doesn’t count. Lately, I’ve tried to see it differently. The beauty isn’t in the finishing, it’s in the becoming.


Almost

There’s something oddly magnetic about the almost-done.

Frustrating to perfectionists but enchanting to anyone who understands that life itself is always only almost-done.

We live in an ongoing beta version of ourselves. Tweaking, editing, never “shipping” the final release.

I’ve come to love that.

Perfection is sterile. Like a hotel room with no signs of life. Imperfection, on the other hand, that’s humanity.


The writer’s graveyard

I write a lot.

And with writing comes an endless trail of unfinished pieces. Half-formed essays, orphaned ideas, intros that never found their middles, middles that never earned their endings.

It’s easy to see those as failures. Words that “didn’t make it.”

But then, one day, I open an old draft, just to read it. It wasn’t bad. In fact, it was good. Not polished, not perfect. But good. And I finished it then. Better than I could have when I first wrote it.

Keep reading with a 7-day free trial

Subscribe to Letters by Burk to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.

Already a paid subscriber? Sign in
© 2025 Burk
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start writingGet the app
Substack is the home for great culture