When I was five years old, I got glasses. My world changed. My eyes were imperfect see? The glasses were as well. They had a shelf life and the lenses used to get scratched, the frames used to suffer wear and tear, and over the years the frames I've worn have changed. I've changed the shape of the frames, I've changed the colour to just name two aspects.
We keep saying that change is the only constant in our lives. We all change. We change when we get a good grade in class. We change when we get a new job. We change the combination of clothes we wear each day. I don't go to work in a pair of flip flops, just as I don't go to a movie in formals. But, I got to thinking why change is important.
There's so much imperfection all around us. Have you noticed it? The laptop I'm writing this on has a faulty right arrow key. This blog I write has seen change in the quality of what's been posted on it. Everything I've posted on it is imperfect, because if it was perfect there would be no need to write a new post. One post would seal this blog's fate permanently. Vincent Van Gogh is considered the greatest artist in the world and his life was imperfect. He was mentally ill, due to circumstance and his best friend fought with him. Out of those imperfections came some of the most breathtaking art this world has seen, art that is worth billions now.
By the way, as I wrote the previous sentence, I modified it from "Art worth billions now" to "Art that is worth billions now", adding a comma and thereby increasing the length of the previous sentence. There are so many ways that this post is imperfect, so many key strokes that have gone in to take it to where it is now and so many more keystrokes before it is complete. It takes a lot of effort for me to write, it isn't seamless and flowy all the time. I've taken to pausing, to re reading some parts, snipping off this and that and maybe coming back to a word or a phrase, putting it back in, taking it out again...this blog post's creation is constantly in flux (and I'd initially wanted to write that "This blog post's creation is a constant...", when I suddenly thought the current iteration sounded better).
Love is again one of the most imperfect things in this world. There are so many different ways we are given love. Love is multiple things. You love something but it can drive you crazy, maybe you love it because it drives you crazy. Maybe the love I got as a child was too much. Maybe as I grew older, I demanded a different sort of love and my parents couldn't keep up with that. My mother died in 2021. She had a sad life, a fucked up life where she battled depression and she lost the battle. For almost the entire time I knew her, I loved my mother, but every day that love would grow a little less and I would love something or someone else a little more.
I never understood why my mother was depressed. I have two or three different memories of my mother. One version of my mother is smiling, clad in a saree I bought her, chatting with my friends about why they don't have girlfriends. Another version of my mother is the frustrated and angry one, asking of me that which I have no way to give her. Another version of my mother is the one lost in a fictional world, a world whose colour scheme was something only she knew.
As I have journeyed through life, I have met a lot of people. Some of those people can't stand the sight of me anymore. Some of those people never gave up on me and some of those people see good in me on days I don't. None of those people are perfect, each one is just doing the best they can.
Every single construct we've made is imperfect. Why else would there be 11 iterations of Windows and the sure knowledge that every few years there would be another Windows coming out? Why else would there always be new and changing technology? I chose to study engineering and what I was taught in college on a Monday in 2013 inevitably changed by Friday in 2017. Again, (and my mother would hate that I'm being repetitive), change is the only constant.
But, one thing hasn't changed yet. Curiosity. The fuel that is consumed in our search to make that which is imperfect into that which is perfect is our curiosity. I teach a child science. You should see her curiosity. Her favourite word in my classes is "Why", and I think that's the most powerful word in the English language.
Why write another book? Why change an archaic law? Why build a robot? Why give up? Why change? Why not stop a while to appreciate how imperfect you are? Why not look for someone who loves the imperfect you, because that imperfection is what makes you who you are?
Maybe even God as we know God is imperfect?
We can't escape being imperfect you see. We can only try to make as many mistakes as we can, learn from the mistakes we've made so as to grow as humans and accept that life goes on. There's a gig in the sky we are all attending one day, and who knows maybe the ticket to attend it is to finally become perfect, and leave this imperfect world behind...this imperfect world that is so vibrantly, unapologetically and beautifully not giving up on its search for perfection and giving us one day after another to become better, to keep trying keep living and learning.
Here's to being imperfect, and here's to being caught in a landslide in a champagne supernova in the sky!
The Bilge Master