“Memoir” – At the West End Gallery
As machines become more and more efficient and perfect, so it will become clear that imperfection is the greatness of man.
—Ernst Fischer
I’ve wondered about the concept of perfection for some time, given the way some folks are always going on about it and seeking it.
Not me, of course. Quite some time back, I came to that conclusion that perfection is not a human quality, that we are defined by our imperfections and how we cope with them. How we adapt and compensate for all the area in which we are lacking.
And that’s somewhat what the quote above says, as I read it.
When I read it, it struck me at once but I had never heard of the writer, Ernst Fischer. Looking him up, I found him to be an Austrian Marxist writer/journalist born in 1899 who waved the banner for Stalinist policies for many years but in his later years– he died in 1972– Fischer came to regret his past. His memoir of his life began with a chapter that was titled Was That Me?, indicating his astonishment at looking back and seeing the many phases and changes he went through in his life.
I think most of us could start our own memoirs with that same first chapter title.
I know I could, even though I feel that I am very much the same at the core now as I was in my earlier days. However, my actions were not always consistent with that core and didn’t really reflect well on me. I did some things that were–how should I put this?— less than perfect. I was then, and am now, a walking exhibition of flaws, imperfections.
As are we all. At least, that applies to everyone I know.
Maybe it’s when we recognize what sort of person we want to be that we begin to alter and align our actions to what we are at our core. Then life becomes somewhat easier to swallow and our imperfections become less evident, not worn on our sleeves for all to see.
I’m not talking about trying to acquire perfection. No, I mean that we just try to recognize the flaws that make up each of us and to accept them. Life is in toleration- of others as well as of ourselves. And in adapting to and overcoming our shortcomings.
Please bear with me here. One of the negative aspects of doing a daily blog is that I often post things as though I were writing them in a journal, unedited and just as they fall out of the mind. They are not always fully realized thoughts or ideas and will soon be questioned in my own mind.
It’s like reading an old journal written when much younger and wondering, “What was I thinking there?” or, echoing Fischer, “Was that me?”
You hope that, as we age and gain experience, that this is a less frequent happening in our lives. But writing in this public forum, forcing out words each day, it sometimes reappears. One’s imperfections become apparent.
Phew! I don’t know what I just said here and I don’t really want to reread it so I’ll let it hang out there for now, flawed though it may be. Someday in the near or distant future I just know I’ll read it and ask myself, “Was that me?”
This post first ran back in 2010. Some things never change.
Redtree Times 