Seeking Perfection

My friend recounts a story of a girl he met who was very pretty, very sweet and innocent. Often, these 3 traits suffice to melt any man’s heart. It is true. Although, we tried hard putting him on and harrowing him that she has been brought up in a different culture, that he is a devout Hindu and she, with western tendencies, Church going girl and it won’t work out, he couldn’t resist her idiosyncrasies.

Yet, he returned every evening often sharing many woes about how she is. Beyond the sweetness and beauty laid an imperfect girl. She had issues, many impulses, temperamental and quick to anger. People might say who is not haunted by these shortcomings? Another group might say love conquers all.

Well, love couldn’t conquer for my friend. Somehow he later began to find her resistible. He kept her at bay. He was making choices. He was listening to what his ideologies are, what is his mental dispositions and preferences in a partner or for that matter, a friend. Eventually, he suppressed his feelings because he couldn't be around her.

I wondered that here is a girl, imperfect like each of us. If she is easily annoyed and is temperamental, perhaps I take things very seriously and have other weaknesses. Was my friend selfish in making his choices? By being assertive that the girl is not for him? Let us keep the selfishness for another blog post. I would like to dwell on the imperfections.

Deep inside, all of us seek perfection. All of us wish to have an efficient motorbike or a good looking house or a well cooked dinner. Man seeks perfection and this is not something new. St. Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century had cited ‘perfection’ as one of the rational proofs for the existence of God. If some people are more perfect than others, if some cities or governments or processes are more perfect than others, then everyone are at varying degrees of perfection. If there is such a thing as degrees of perfection, then such a thing as perfection exists. St. Thomas Aquinas called this idea of Perfection, God. Whereas us men who are mortals in whom God has infused in us the longing for perfection. So that eventually, we may seek God, the infinitely perfect.

Often when people wish to correct us, change us and we snub them asserting our freedom to be how we are. We fool ourselves by spurning their offer to secure our pride. As we seek perfection, in us and around us, we cannot help but correct our friends because a more perfect object can be loved much more than an object that hasn’t reached the same perfection.

We cannot love stray dogs as much as trained Dogs¹. We love trained dogs because we have perfected them to an extent where they can sit, stand and roll according to our commands. Hence they are more adorable and we are more disposed to shower affection in a dog that can reciprocate a degree of perfection that we have infused in them. A literate wife can be appreciated more for being resourceful than an illiterate wife who may in many quarters, becomes a burden. There is not so much selfishness her but a longing for perfection.

1. Ideas from C.S Lewis, Problem of Pain