Perfection and Infinity
I think it’s safe to assume we live in the most agreeable era of all our recorded existence. We have been freed the burden of acquiring the most basic, essential necessities. Things such as finding food, clean water, clothing, and general safety are what we now take for granted. Though the energy it takes for those things to get into our hands is no less complicated, they are not things we worry about anymore. They all come easy today (generally speaking). So easy, in fact, that the abundance of choices sometimes makes it hard to decide. Which is ironic.
Thankfully this ease of existence has given us an immense amount of free time. You can rest assured humans were always meant to have this kind of free time. It is when we get to exercise this extraordinary ability of ours to imagine, create, and simply enjoy our lives in lavish and complicated ways. Yes, our destiny was always meant to have this leisure of living with only more possibilities to look forward to. Who dares say we are doing it wrong? Excessive, maybe. But not wrong. It is only because humans spend less time worrying about eating, that they’ve had the time to compose new inventions and apply themselves in creative ways that benefit humanity. From the advent of the wheel to billionaires going to space just for the hell of it, we have evolved so much to our own liking that we have adapted the world around us (and not the opposite) for the sole purpose of nourishing those pleasure sensors and giving ourselves more of what we desire.
The world now caters to all our needs, both complex and simple. This has been a millenniums long pursuit and can be described by one word…perfection. From the onset humans have strived to build a perfect society, or one that comes closest to that meaning, including the structures our society exists within. The most basic and universal examples of this can be seen in the buildings we both inhabit and are surrounded by daily. They are perfectly aligned, symmetrically even, and structured in a manner where they won’t be falling down at the blowing of just any ol’ wolf. Look at the corner of the room you’re in now and tell me if that isn’t oddly convenient and perfect.
By perfect please realize I am speaking in regard to nature. And yes, I am speaking to the physical, literal sense. Nothing in nature is as perfect as what humans make with their hands and minds. Because nature never has nor ever will have the standards of humans. And that’s what makes it perfect. We will never critic nature the way we critic those things made by man. If it is unaligned, asymmetrical, uneven, disproportionate, etc… we just accept it as being natural without a second thought. But anything made by man and our eyes are quick, even eager, to find fault. It’s a curious thing when you think about it. Vehicles, even ugly ones, have seamless curvature and symmetry. But what do our eyes notice first? We take for granted what we have come to expect and spot out the dents and scratches that make it less perfect. Even our eating utensils are symmetrical. If one of the tines on a fork were shorter than the others, few of us would continue eating with it. Admit it. It would be regarded as defective and swiftly rejected. That fork would be unworthy to hold our food as we shoved it into our mouths. Life’s too short.
Humans have mastered perfection, at least in the material sense. We really do deserve to pat ourselves on the backs for that. And even though most of us have no part in the design and implementation of our perfect materials, we are still beholders of perfection. Like an art patron who pays millions for a black blob on a white canvas, it is us who sees the true flawlessness in perfection. It is what separates us from the animals. It did not come all at once, though, this universal appreciation. These perfect structures erected over time have undoubtably influenced our brains and thought processes, snowballing our expectations and potential even further. Unlike every other living organism on this planet, humans recognize the necessity for perfection. So much so that each of us live in a perfectly angled and crafted structure, and we are reading from a device that has perfect measurements on all sides.
When you think about it, any practical and useful thing that is imperfect in shape and design has no place in our society. Not if we can help it. And we can’t. Most everything that man makes automatically conforms to this universal standard of perfection and quality. That is the human species at its most advanced. We have turned the raw and unformed matter of this planet into perfect shapes and for perfect uses. Uniformity, evenness, balance… these are the most practical qualities of most all things we create to serve us and our needs. And yet those qualities are alien to the natural world we live in.
I’m beginning to understand the word perfect has a close relationship with the word infinity—a measure that is never ending and will never be known. But unlike the word infinity, perfection is obtainable… to an extent. It’s kind of naughty when you think about it. But it begs the question, has this pursuit of perfection undermined our humanity? Striving toward perfection in and of itself is not a bad thing. On the contrary it is the key to our societal evolution; we engineer wise machines to work perfectly and afford us more time, money, and pleasure. But what about the actual human being, and all those complicated, messy things that constitute what that actually is. How can we ever determine a perfect person, and should we even try?
What does perfection have to do with the human being, anyway? Aside from our ability to recognize perfect qualities in material, we are hardly in a position to understand what perfection has to do with the human condition. So many things are subjective that perfection doesn’t really exist beyond the physical sense. When we try and use perfection in a relatable way that humans can measure themselves by… what do we have? I guess I have to go back to its relationship with infinity. Infinity being a number that goes on forever, and never ends. But if it never ends then what does it represent? And if it doesn’t represent anything, does it really exist?
Let’s consider what humans really want on a personal level. After thousands of years of literature and media, what can be said of those stories and characters we relate to? While we are obsessed with perfection and how we can obtain it, we are simultaneously attracted to those imperfect personalities who shake the world up. We believe in laws, safety, and justice on the surface. Then we go home and watch movies about criminals, killers, and con artists because deep down we are attracted to them. Humans are perilously drawn to disfunction and destruction. We can’t help ourselves. Those people who revel in their dysfunction and share it with the world make life more interesting. Much of the popular genres of music and movies are nothing if not dysfunctions and toxicity on public display. After all, those big celebrity personalities didn’t become popular for being predicable like the rest of us. They have an edge that cuts through social norms and barriers. They put the imperfection of humans on blast, and we love them for it.
It appears there is no stopping this pursuit of perfection. Cars can drive themselves now and even change their color at the whim of the owner. Computers that were once created to be worthy opponents to humans can now beat the best of us at the games we love. A perfect record. More often today these machines that were created by man are proving to be better and more capable than their creators. And while we are tirelessly eliminating flaws in our machines, creating generations of new-but-old technology, we are also beginning to eliminate flaws in our species via genetic engineering. These humans will hardly constitute as being human, though, once too much is altered and taken away. After all, our imperfections help define our personalities.
The more we pursue this beautiful infinity the clearer view of our own limitations we have. For any job that was once done by a person and is now done by a machine, we have an example of humans becoming obsolete to their own creations. And while we live in these perfect forms we strive all the more to hide the perfect storms that are brewing beneath our skin. We are surrounded by symmetry and evenness everywhere we look, except when we look into our own minds and hearts. There is nothing perfect about rage, jealously, envy, love, confusion and lust… or even the good emotions that counterbalance those bad ones, since no feeling lasts forever. I pose the question if this generation is under more pressure from all the perfection in our lives. And if not, then how come? How are we so blissfully accepting of these bizarre and perfect standards? What do we see in them that we see in ourselves?
Without going too far down the rabbit hole as to why, let me direct this conversation toward a relatable conclusion. We must never forget that mother nature has never, nor will ever, deny us because we are imperfect. She will never expect perfection from us. She is beautiful, providing, mighty, and wonderous because she simply is. As much as we have built walls and cities to surround us, to protect us from nature and her elements, we are always still her children. We need look no further but to observe and consider her natural form. We humans are from the earth. No matter which religion, belief system, or theory you subscribe to—all agree that we are from the earth. So it is odd how humans have come to discover and recognize perfection, when it is all too foreign to the place we originate from. It is almost as if we have a secret, innate knowledge within ourselves that gives us an appreciation for unusual things.
To end, let us remember where we all come from. It is a beautiful and perfect place for life because it does not try nor need to be more than it is. Nature is always the epitome of perfection. The planet that harnesses this nature is ever changing. Earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, droughts, tornados… all of these things are like the uncontrollable emotions inside humans that make the word perfect irrelevant to our condition. Still, with all its hazards and dangers, earth remains the perfect place for hosting life. Our eyes see no imperfections in the wonders of nature or mother earth’s appearance. Why then do we hold ourselves to a higher, unfair standard? As far as I see it, perfection as we know it is not of this world. We then must have gained this knowledge from a wiser, higher being than ourselves. That would be the true infinity.