Lessons From My Son, On Perfection

The pursuit of perfection is instilled in us at an early age, perhaps to develop certain qualities that will help us in years to come.  And it does have a place in our lives as do rigour, a commitment to excellence, diligence, analysis, the process of checking, cross-checking, sifting, unearthing...  But there are times when the pursuit of perfection is self defeating and often, the adult world cannot easily see this.  We need other eyes and ears and tiny  new voices to tell us that we should rethink.

Perfection comes into play quite often in times of self expression - when one is creating something new or just trying to express oneself through appropriate channels.  It is important to remember that when we are driven from within to express ourselves, we do not really know the purpose of the expression or what lies ahead for our creation - where it will go and who it will touch.  Even if we try, we cannot repeat ourselves for each situation is different- the moment is different, we are internally at a different state from the previous time and the space and environment we find ourselves in is never the same.  That is the beauty of our individual efforts and what makes it satisfying is not just the shape it takes but the process involved.  And at some moment we need to let it go, drift away and find its goal.  Many times, our concern about our own inner standards prevents us from expressing what at a very deep level we would really like to.  We hesitate, preferring to wait for a better time, and the moment is gone (other moments do come of course).

Long, long ago, I stopped singing (as I could not sing at the pitch desired by my primary school teachers!).  I do hum and whistle and, like many people, some music does move me enough to sing on my own at times.  But not very loudly.  After my son was born, I realized that he much preferred to hear my voice rather than the tapes I would play and nothing could make him sleep better than my own bedtime songs.  So I began to sing, just for the two of us, and now there is so much joy in the process because, at his prompting, we are learning new songs together and singing them loudly and unabashedly.  The first day that he settled into school, I found I was free to shop in the morning and it was only after spending quite some time in the shop that I realized I had been humming away to myself, and no one had raised an eyebrow.  A gift I need to thank my son for.

My thoughts turn also to a friend who derives tremendous satisfaction from perfection.  Photography is one of his interests, and when he visited India, he carried his equipment around, taking pictures everywhere he went.  There were so many photographs and not enough time to edit them so they lay around for a while until he decided to send them to us anyway.  It so happened that they arrived on a day when my little son returned from school in tears.  He had taken his collection of wildlife pictures (cut out from the newspaper) and someone had trashed them saying they were not meant for his school work,  and my son desperately wanted them back.  As I wondered what to do, there appeared on my computer screen, shot after shot of pictures taken at a wildlife sanctuary.  My son and I went through them with great delight.  We thought they were beautiful because they had a spontaneity and because they were just what my son was missing at that moment.  My son was happy to have a new collection (though he said there were not enough monkeys and also cautioned the photographer not to wander about at night taking pictures because a Brazilian wandering spider might dig its fangs into his foot!).  Perhaps these pictures would not make it into a fancy photo gallery in their current form but my son and I could not have asked for anything more perfect at that moment.