June 9, 2015--Perfection

Perhaps it's where we are. Maybe it's because of the way we live while here. Or it could be the people with whom we have become friends. Wonderful people. Of course it could be the weather--gray one day or hour, then clear and sparkling, sometimes dramatically and dangerously threatening. All awesomely beautiful. Maybe we are just feeling good and in a romanticizing mood.

Whatever the cause, we have been spending time thinking about perfection.

About certain things Rona can be a bit of an absolutist. I on the other hand may be inclined to seek compromise, middle ground, consensus. Or do this because I am an equivocator by nature with few guiding principles. These differences between us, though, contribute to a good debate about a lot of things, including what might be thought to be perfect.

For Rona there is, cannot be anything even resembling perfect; and, more perplexing to me, to her nothing can be improved enough to become perfect. Things that by nature are not perfect cannot become perfect. Perfect is flawless, and not capable of becoming so. Perfect is not the result of any process--it just is or must be.

In fact, perfect to her does not exist anywhere in nature, and especially not among humans, since everything is subject to change. But not change leading to perfection. Just to hopefully something better. Much better is possible, hoped for--even to a very good outcome--but just not to perfect.

Thus, for her, what we experience here is not perfection. Cannot be. By this definition anything, everything can be improved but still not become perfect. It is always out of reach. In fact, the closer one approaches the more it tantalizingly retreats.

Rona does believe that things can become much better, even when it feels they cannot be. They just never can become perfect.

I am not happy thinking this way, though I suspect she is right. It is just that I do not want to give in to the view that there can be an end to striving.

So I retreat and turn to dictionaries in defense of my position about perfection.

One says perfect "is as good as it is possible to be."

I like that. Nothing static here. The pursuit of perfect is thus literally full of possibilities.

Perfection, another says, is as "free as possible from all flaws or defects." Again, the allure of possibilities.

Etymologically, I point out--my best repost---that perfect, perfection is from the Latin perficere, which means "to complete." I embrace this lower standard. I believe in the value of completion. It helps me make my case.

In the meantime, as I write this, the sun is rising. The light, perfect on the bay and islands. Or at least becoming so.

Rona on her birthday