I like playing for folks.  I do have a bit of "stage fright", which can make it a bit more difficult for the first few minutes, but once I get going, I'm fine.

I see music as a form of communication.  I like to think that music is something we invented so we could convey things like emotions, mood and mindset that were just too complex to be able to express with words or diagrams.  Poetry is one way spoken language can do a bit better at that, and so we combined it with music to be able to sing songs, maybe with some accompaniment.  Probably one of the best things the human race ever came up with.  LOL

It was something so important to us that we invented ways to write it down.  Before that, songs were passed down by being remembered by one generation and learned by the next.  If the person that knew it died before it got passed down, it sometimes just got lost.  But some of it got passed down or someone thought to write it down, and so most of us do some songs that started centuries before we were ever born.

I do recall from a thread somewhere over the months here that some folks don't like playing for family.  Well, that's a choice, I guess.  But just a thought to think on maybe with that.  My grandmother on my mother's side died when I was around 4 or 5 yrs old.  I don't remember her face clearly.  Even though she used to talk with me quite a bit, I don't think I could recount much of what she ever said.  But I remember her playing harmonica.  Not just the songs she used to play, but the distinctive sound and style of her playing.  When she was going to play for a bit, she'd always begin and end with a couple verses of the old song "Home!  Sweet Home!" (the one with the line "Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home").

My grandmother on my father's side, I never got to know much.  She died when I was still a toddler, and before I could talk.  Don't remember what she looked like.  But I remember the sound of her voice when she sang to me and rocked me when I was sick.  I haven't ever found the song, but I remember the melody and a few words of the chorus.  

Powerful stuff, music.  But if you don't play/sing for people in your family, those sort of things can't happen.

I'll get off the soapbox on that topic now.  LOL

More recently, a few weeks ago, a family member we don't get to see often was by for a visit.  He's a musician, he took piano in his younger years.  Classical, did the recitals and such, but ended up going into a different career and so now he plays for his own enjoyment or when friends are over sometimes.  An amateur, in the very best sense of the word.  But all the musical instruments around here, of course we got to talking and I had to show off my pretty toys and play for a bit on each for him.  It was great fun, and a couple of hours passed in the blink of an eye.  A friend of the family also dropped by and stayed for coffee and to listen for a while.  It was a good time.

Didn't get anything like a jam session going, since he doesn't play by ear and didn't have any score with him.  I'll want to think of something for that maybe, next time he visits.

Anyway, I've heard a lot of folks on this forum say that they only want to be able to play for their own enjoyment.  Well, I think a musician should always enjoy when they play and sometimes we do indeed play for just ourselves.  But I also think that if that if you don't play for other people (we can include the non-human "people" like cats, dogs, rats, chickens or whatever), then you are missing out on some of what music can be for you and others. 

Like I said, I see it as a form of communication.  We play to say something or show something to others that maybe words alone would just be "too little" to manage.

Personally, I think the "perfection" attitude can become bad for anything if you let it turn into an obstacle.

Does someone need to be able to cook a burger or chicken perfectly to cook at a backyard cookout?  Does a batch of cookies have to be perfect before one would give any to family and friends?

People that do crafts, like crochet or knitting frequently give away even fairly early projects to others.  Those usually aren't perfect either.  That will not mean that they may not be appreciated, though.

Sure, one wants things like that to be good.  Or at least "not crappy".  But perfect?  I don't think music is ever actually perfect, not in this world, anyway.