Once again, before I begin I’d like to make it
known that the views and statements presented in this article are solely that
of my personal opinion. The truths (as I believe them to be) that I’m about to
expound on may offend and/or shock.
Reader discretion is advised.
We are told that perfection exists, that it’s
attainable, that it’s something that we should strive for, and that we should admire
those who have “attained” it. But is reaching human perfection a realistic
possibility? Does it even exist? Stop and think for a minute, and visualize
what you think physical human perfection looks like. Now ask yourself: “Why is this my idea of
perfection?” “Is what I visualized REALLY human perfection?”
Our first stop in this brief analysis of society’s
quest for the ideal focuses on our modern society’s rampant glorification of
human “perfection”. On a daily basis we are frequently bombarded with images of
what we’re told is beautiful and/or ideal. We think our concept of beauty is
our own but in actuality, we are conditioned since childhood to conform to a
conventional standard of what is visually pleasing. A good example of how the idea of beauty is relative is the
now-famous country of Mauritania, where (for women) morbidly obese is
considered sexy. In a nutshell, the men of Mauritania find overweight women
sexy because since birth they are thought and shown that bigger is better in
terms of beauty. We may be in awe of the Mauritanians, but in turn they may
also be in awe of us. This is where the quest for perfection comes in; everyday,
through mass media, we are shown images of what human “perfection” is, while we
are also given means to “attain” it. People spend their whole lives obsessing
over reaching this plastic image of “perfection,” but these people often never
feel pleased with the end result. Their displeasure comes from never being able
to live up to the “ideal,” an imaginary idea that has been made possible
through photo-shopped lies. This type of “perfection-seeking” isn’t only unique
to conventional societies, again we must return to our earlier example for a
contrasting view; Mauritanian mothers force feed their daughters from a young
age so that one day they can become fat enough to attract an affluent husband.
This example shows that no matter the standard, people will always strive to
achieve perfection.
The reality of “perfection seeking” isn’t only true
for physical perfection. It is in fact even more present in our modern
society’s educational and emotional realties. In whatever way you look at it,
modern education is flawed. Ninety-nine percent of the world educates its
children in a very particular way; modern standardized education treats every
individual child like a single factory product. In a factory, a product goes
though several different stages of development, each earlier stage being a
requirement for the proceeding one. Each product is treated the same way, given
the same tests on each stage, with the products that are unable to meet the
quality requirements needed to reach the next stage of development being
discarded as “faulty” or “unable to meet quality standards”. Sounds familiar?
In a factory the end result is of course a mass-produced product that is nearly
flawless and identical in every way, standardized; hence the term Standardized Education. This is the way we have been educated,
and this is the way we will continue to be educated. Education is standardized
because society believes that there is a “perfect” level of intelligence that
is required for a person to be able to function within it. But to what end? To
function as a cog on in the industrial machine that makes up a “perfect”
economy? Education should exist to make us more intelligent, not more
efficient, and to create thought, not profit.
“Perfection seeking” affects our emotional reality
more that anything else. And by “emotional reality” I mean the particular circumstances
that make us happy, and the actions we take to reach said happiness. You may or
may not be aware of it, but we are all striving for some type of perfection,
whether it may be in the form of perfect grades, a perfect performance, or
(most probably) the attainment of the perfect girl or guy. There’s nothing
wrong with it either, as human beings it is only natural for us to seek
emotional happiness. However, what is wrong are the means we have developed in
order to reach said happiness. Because of the pressure to get perfect grades,
cheating has become a rampant problem in almost every classroom setting. An
actor or actress might resort to drugs as a means to clam themselves down so as
to be able to deliver a “perfect” performance. And many love-stuck people more
often than not get their heart broken because of the improbable standards they
set for themselves. We are all
pressured to achieve an ideal, and if a person holds grave importance on the
achievement of perfection, s/he will most surely suffer great emotional trauma
when s/he fails to achieve it.
The reason why I say that perfection is overrated
(see title) is because I believe that in a theoretical sense, perfection simply
doesn’t exist. At the very least, I am sure that complete perfection is
unattainable. Just think about it, there is no one so beautiful that every
single human being on the planet would regard he or she as “perfect.” There is
no one man or woman so well educated that he or she can never make a mistake.
And there is no one so happy that they think every single thing in their life
is “perfect.” As human beings, we naturally seek “perfection.” Understanding
what exactly influences our perception of the ideal, and not letting our
pursuit of it consume us, is an important step in the betterment of the human
race.
