Perfection
is that to which we aspire in many of the phenomena in our lives, whether they
be objects, activities, processes, interactions, relationships or
atmospheres. It is that which makes
something flawless and complete. It is
that which makes something seem totally right for the situation. For eternity in some situations and for
precisely the moment in others. But
there are all kinds of obstacles to perfection, which is why we aspire to and
maybe sometimes come close to, but seldom totally capture it. Even in engineering, where machine parts and
machine processes have to be created within the parameters of very precise
measurements, it is sometimes hard to get these measurements exactly
right. In most cases, the deviations in
measurements in engineering and science aren’t that important, particularly if
they are very small. But, in other
cases, when they are important, deviations can lead to the wrong results in experiments
or to problems in functioning in machines.
It is
much easier to even approach perfection, when dealing with situations that
require objective measurements. But in
those situations that deal with how we experience something subjectively,
perfection can be something that is much more difficult to pin down. What makes for a perfect job or a perfect
spouse. What if a spouse has traits that
make her or him perfect or almost perfect in one kind of life situation, but
not so perfect in another. A person who
is great in verbal conversation and thus as a companion, but not so great as a
lover. What about a job that fits one’s
interests and is challenging, but that is so demanding that it is very
stressful and ultimately harmful to one’s health. It gets down to that old saying “Be careful
what you ask for.”
In
general, it is my belief that technology has transformed the way that we look
at perfection. In preindustrial times,
when we lived closer to nature, perfection used to refer to a complete seamless
phenomenon that was defined enough to prevent it from losing its sense of
integrity by being enveloped, swallowed up by organic stimulation in a
traditional highly grounded more natural environment. On one level, perfection was transcendence in
spiritual entities that were not susceptible to organic decay. Religion played a very important role in
terms of creating notions of perfection in traditional society. Perfection was conceived of in terms of
perfection in subject matter (a transcendently beautiful woman) or in
technique. Among the Navajo Indians,
creating perfect rugs was thought of as challenging the gods, so they always
purposely put in one mistake. Perfection
also entered into the area of romance, which was, in spite of what I wrote
earlier in this article, an attempt to find the perfect person who complemented
one in every way. This romantic ideal
was not something that the average tribesman or peasant or tradesman could
afford to think about. Rather it was an
ideal that was found in the middle and upper classes of European society –
people who had the leisure time to think about such perfection. Needless to say, it probably often led to
disappointment, which was why many romantics got lovers to satisfy them
emotionally in ways that their spouses were not able to. All these transcendent approaches to
perfection were ways to fight off the undifferentiating effects of the intense
organic stimulation found in more natural and traditional living
environments. That intense organic
stimulation with all the intense manifestations of nature: vegetation, wild
animals, pronounced geographical features, geological presentations and weather
patterns as well as intense manifestations in traditional villages, towns and
marketplaces, tended to blur the outlines of a person’s sense of self and, as
it were, melt it down to a more and more primitive animal state of mind. Even those forms of architecture that
represented early attempts to create transcendence to fight undifferentiation
like pyramids, churches, castles and estates and traditional cities with their
more organic architecture only proved how intense the pull of the intense
organic stimulation was in more traditional society.
In
modern technological society, where people start to model themselves after
highly defined machines, definition is not the aspect of humans that is
threatened by their total living environments.
Today, the concern is with coherence, with mustering together sufficient
flowing blendable continual stimuli, organic stimuli to hold oneself and one’s
surroundings together. And today,
perfection can be thought of as an entity that is coherent enough to prevent it
from losing its sense of integrity by randomly falling apart, crumbling apart
from entropy in an experiential vacuum.
In a world where a focus on transcendent eternities means focusing on
the seamless forms of modern architecture and long stretches of concrete and
asphalt that wander endlessly rather than on spiritual entities and worlds, the
perfection which makes us feel complete is tactile, textural and
temporary. It is good experience rather
than lifeless possessions. Perfection today is not so seamless but rather
invites one to enter the experience of the phenomenon rather than to simply
view it from outside. It is a rich
immanent perishable moment: a good encounter, a good adventure, a beautiful
meal, terrific sex. In a vacuumized
world, the focus is on making perfect imprints rather than preserving
them. Granted that at the end of life,
one has to confront the total nothingness of death without a strong surrogate
immortality of preserved imprints. But
perhaps the intense memory of a rich vibrant life without many preserved
imprints is in and of itself a kind of perfection that a person can carry with
them to the grave. Perhaps, there is a
perfection in a life that is vulnerably perishable. If not, the end of life for people that
follow this approach has to be very difficult.
© 2020 Laurence Mesirow
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