On Perfection

There are two kinds of people in this world: those who do something and those who seek perfection. Calling them perfectionists would be a misnomer. A perfectionist is supposed to be someone who is looking for perfection in an object of their creation. A perfectionist has already performed, whereas the seeker for perfection is still in the waiting. Constantly in the waiting. Transfixed by the prey that is getting further and further away.

Perfection is a drug, a hallucinatory disease. It leads to madness or maybe it begins in and with madness. But who could really tell? The point is that it is all-consuming and self-sabotaging. Nonetheless, it seduces the innocent and it lures her with its promise.

Now, what does perfection promise? Excellence, for once. And a spiritual sense of accomplishment, of unity with the divine. Perfection brings us closer to the realm of gods and strives at making us transhumans. It offers us the chance to evolve and to make a fundamental leap that could at best be matched, though never surpassed.

I don't know about you, but I, for one, have a flawed relationship with perfection. I yearn for it and I don't know how to go about it. I'm mesmerized and paralyzed by it up to the point that I have to actively pursue imperfection in order to do anything. What an irony! Dreaming of perfection and consciously and decidingly settling for its opposite. But, then, there is no other way. Imperfections abound in this world, whereas perfection is only one.

Sometimes I feel that I couldn't be able to spot perfection even if it were to hit me in the head and knock me off my feet. I have since wondered if I have ever seen anything that I would call perfect. Where is the perfection of the world hiding? After giving it some thought, I could tell you with a high degree of confidence that I have met perfection. Not in me, but in others who and which were genuinely oblivious to what they were standing for.

I have seen perfection in the skin of a baby. Not the very young ones, though, but those babies that are of 2 or 3 years of age. I have seen the perfection of coolness in elegant fish swimming in peaceful waters. I have seen perfection in the color red. I have seen perfection in a glass of water. Not the glass itself, obviously (not even the nicest glasses that I've seen so far are perfect), but in the calmness and comfort of the water as it spreads itself into all corners and leaves no spot unfilled. I have seen perfection in the way in which the light is captured and then thrown back out into the world by a diamond. I have sniffed perfection. It's in the scent of my favorite and oldest black scarf, the one that blends together all of my perfumes. I haven't tasted perfection. Maybe I didn't find it, but as I am nothing but a food lover and experimenter, chances are that perfection can't be fed by the spoon.