Drawing My Imperfect Circle
In Zen art, there’s a practice called Ensō: hand drawing a circle in one fluid movement. The circle is never perfect. It can’t be. That’s the point. You draw it once, accept it as it is, and tomorrow you draw another one. Over time, through thousands of imperfect circles, you learn something about letting go.
I named my company Zenso after this practice years ago. I loved the philosophy: embrace imperfection, practice daily, accept what comes.
But it is surprisingly hard to actually live it.
Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been timid around blank pages. Not in a writer’s block kind of way, I’ve always had ideas. But there was something so pristine, so full of possibility about a blank sheet of paper that putting pencil to it almost felt like a kind of violence. What if what I drew or wrote wasn’t perfect? What if I ruined it?
Even when there were hundreds of identical sheets in a notebook, it didn’t matter. Each one felt precious. Each one felt like a chance I might waste.
This followed me into adulthood. I studied game design and programming. I’ve been playing and running TTRPGs for over a decade. I’ve designed dozens of games, systems, and homebrew rules with friends and family: games we played during lunch breaks at school, house rules for our campaigns, mechanics I was genuinely proud of.
But I never shared any of it. Never published anything. Never even posted about it online.
It was never finished. Never perfect enough. Never worth sharing.
Here’s the thing about perfectionism: it’s not really about other people. Sure, I worried about criticism or being misunderstood. But mostly I was afraid of disappointing myself. Of looking at something I’d made and knowing it could have been better. Of it being permanent, even though in the digital age, nothing really is.
I’d start writing game rules, get intimidated by one section, and jump to another. I’d design a subsystem, realize it had a flaw, and abandon the whole project. I’d keep notes privately, digitally, where no one could see them. Where they’d stay safely imperfect and unfinished.
The irony isn’t lost on me. I named my company after a philosophy of accepting imperfection, then spent years really struggling to practice it.
Having a kid changed something.
Watching a newborn learn to exist in the world is watching pure, unfiltered imperfection in action. They don’t worry about doing things right. They just try. They learn at their own pace. And with proper nurturing, they develop perfectly into exactly who they are.
I understood, suddenly and profoundly, what the Ensō actually meant. It’s not about drawing perfect circles. It’s about drawing your circle, with the skill and steadiness you have today. And then doing it again tomorrow. Mastery isn’t the goal: the practice is the goal. The imperfect circle is the point.
So this is me, finally drawing my circle.
I’m designing a tabletop RPG. I’ve been working on it more seriously than I’ve ever worked on a creative project before, and for the first time in my life, I actually believe I might finish it. Not because it’s perfect (it’s not) but because I’m finally ready to accept that it doesn’t need to be.
These posts are part of that practice. I’m going to try to write about my design process as it happens: the decisions, the dead ends, the half-baked ideas, the things I’m unsure about. I’m going to share work that isn’t finished. I’m going to be wrong about things and figure them along the way.
Maybe no one will read it. Maybe no one will play my game. But I’m doing this for myself anyway, and I’m learning that’s actually good enough. And if even one person reads this and gets something out of it, whether that’s inspiration, ideas, or just the comfort of knowing someone else struggles with this too, well, that’s a bonus.
I don’t have this figured out. I’m not an expert. I’m just someone who’s finally tired of letting perfectionism keep me from making things.
If that resonates with you, if you’ve also got projects you’ve never shared, games you’ve never published, ideas you’ve kept safely locked away where they can’t be judged, maybe this is for you, too.
I’m going to try to post regularly about my game design journey. Some posts will be technical (ability scores, resolution mechanics, that sort of thing). Some will be philosophical (what makes TTRPGs special, how rules enable play). Some might just be me working through problems and being uncertain.
It won’t be perfect. But it’ll be mine, and it’ll be honest, and it’ll be here, written down.
Welcome to Zenso Games. Let’s draw some imperfect circles together.