ruminations on perfection

Der Weg ist das Ziel.

This life is not about its culmination; it never has been. People continually strive for perfection, but perfection--if we ever reached it--would be terminally boring. Life is and always has been about pushing forward--about the journey, and never about the destination.

Imagine a perfect world: no one need strive for anything, because they already have it. There is no rivalry, no improvement, no challenge, no purpose. For this reason, there are some aspects about heaven that I don't quite understand. We all idealize perfection, but in reality, I don't think anyone would choose a perfect world over one where we have the chance to continually improve ourselves--and one where we can make mistakes. Without mistakes, life would be kind of purposeless. Imagine a video game where you're assured to win every time--no one would play it. We play video games because we want the chance to prove ourselves--we want the challenge. We want the chance to make mistakes, and if that chance is taken from us, we immediately lose interest.

If anything and everything we do brings about the same solution--perfection--then no one will have any motivation to continue. This is, in essence, why communism is a failed economic system.

So then, what is heaven like? Is heaven a place of perfection, where every desire is immediately granted and every whim satisfied, and we long for nothing?

For my part, I hope it's not.

I want the ability to fail. I want the chance to make mistakes and keep trying. Without the possibility of disappointment, success means nothing. Perfection is not the best feeling in the world--instead, it's attaining Perfection against all odds. Once we reach it, we immediately look for the next challenge.Without some possibility failure, success means nothing. Without some possibility of hell, heaven means nothing.

And if we are given, in heaven, the ability to make mistakes, how is it different from our present life?

So my tentative, concluding thought: I hope heaven isn't perfection. I hope it is, like this one, a place where we are offered the chance to strive for perfection and given the possibility of failure. Perfection isn't as sublime as we've heard.

On the Physics of the Illusory

Ideas--true creative inspirations--are subtle, like that illusory dream that quietly fades seconds after awakening. Ideas can't be forced. Instead, they form at the edges of consciousness, lingering there until noticed; and then, you try to focus on them, and they seem dimmer, less focused. Like stars--brighter when you look away, because of the increased ratio of rods to cones in the peripheral retina. I wonder if some physiological aspect of the brain is comparable.

I feel like searching for an idea requires stealth. Pretend to focus on something else, keep the hunt for an idea in the subconscious--and then, in the middle of reading a book or taking a shower, it appears, and you seize it with a triumphant Eureka! And your captured idea becomes the basis for your poem, or your short story, or your screenplay.

Forced ideas, I feel, make average literature.