How to live a flawed life
“For the rest of history, for most of us, our bright promise will always fall short of being actualised; it will never earn us bountiful sums of money or beget exemplary objects or organisations....
Most of us stand poised at the edge of brilliance, haunted by the knowledge of our proximity, yet still demonstrably on the wrong side of the line, our dealings with reality undermined by a range of minor yet critical psychological flaws (a little too much optimism, an unprocessed rebelliousness, a fatal impatience or sentimentality). We are like an exquisite high-speed aircraft which for lack of a tiny part is left stranded beside the runway, rendered slower than a tractor or a bicycle.”
― Alain de Botton, The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work
Today I hiked a short trail in Chilliwack, B.C. with an amazing view at the summit. In a few weeks I am taking our family to the Grand Canyon and Zion National Parks. The beauty of nature is divine. Divine in the sense that it is not man made. While man is capable of incredible creation, we have a tendency of seeking exactness and symmetry in our design. We want perfection, or at least we think we do.
Nature is wiser than us.
True beauty is not in perfection. The most awesome landscapes speak to our souls because of their vastness, their colour, their detail but also because of the unique symphony of flaws that they display. The Grand Canyon is not symmetrical or predictable. Nature has carved into the Earth a spectacularly random formation and we come from all over the world to see it.
And yet when it comes to building our reputation and our narrative we obsess over every detail so that we can present ourselves as symmetrical, flawless, and worthy. Some might succeed but most of us do not and must continue this life with scars and stains that define us.
To live a flawed life is to accept that the endeavour for absolute purity is over and in its stead is a gruelling hike towards a perfectly imperfect vista. Reality brings bumps and scratches, period. Like fine china that is so precious you never actually use them, a flawed life necessarily includes the occasional stain, scratch, or chip and it is the very cracks and inconsistencies that make it work consuming in the first place.
Now that many people see you as flawed it can be terrifying but one benefit is that you can release yourself from the pressure of being flawless. Your precious china have a chip or a stain on them and that’s frustrating but now you can actually eat. You were not meant to be perfect, at least not in that sense. The perfection that you are destined for is more like nature’s perfection. The landscape that is perfectly inconsistent and random and asymmetrical. That’s you.
If we were to design the perfect human no one would like them. We have finally created large language models that can communicate with us convincingly and they are largely lame and uninteresting. A.I. can make music and art instantly and impressively but the thing that we are craving more than anything is human creation that has soul, which is code for, it is not entirely perfect. There are hints of mistakes, inconsistency, and deviation.
To err is to be human. I love live music but why not save the money and listen to the perfect studio recording at home? I was in an arena the other night and hear Pearl Jam perform “Present Tense” a few hundred feet from me and technically it did not sound as good as the album but I got to experience hearing thousands of people, imperfectly sing along with Eddie Vedder about how seeing the way a tree bends can inspire. That is divine.
Having been attacked or disgrace publicly is like social death, a demotion, and a fall but it also starts the process of embracing the flawed life. Once the flawed life is accepted there is a spiritual ascension. This is a key message in Christian mythology. The great Hero is brought to a low state, the lowest state possible, and then is exalted anyway, or even because He had touched the bottom. The first become the last and the last become the first. Believe it or not, you in your lowly state might be in a prime position to take your humility and ascend to a higher plane you have ever experience. You may not regain the social status but you can transcend it and become a part of the perfectly imperfect beauty that Nature creates.
I am a human being; and thus nothing human is alien to me.
Terence