Perfection, Universal Perception?

I will be upfront and say that this particular blog post hath stemmed from a conversation from my friend Nicole, when the subject of Philosophy came up. She brought up Plato's World/Theory of Forms, which at some points speaks of perception.

Which brought us to this....

Me: I often wonder if our obsession with perfection is due to the fact that we think it may not exist and that scares us.

Nicole: Yeah, that makes sense. When you really think about it there is no reason we should strive for it because its not possible. But maybe because we know that, we try anyways.

Me: And sometimes people realize it may not be attainable, and it ruins them.

Which brings us here to this blog....Let us continue....

Perfection means something different to everyone. But does it actually exist just because we have a perception of the basic idea?

Also, does the idea of perfection exist because we, as imperfect beings, NEED it to exist? As if it needs to be there as the ultimate goal?

People often need something to strive for. Goals, dreams, etc are all different ideas of what we need to accomplish to feel success, or in some way, perfection. But outside of this need to succeed, or feel successful, does perfection exist?

If there were no humans around, would the idea of perfection exist? And is there one ultimate facet of perfection that all people can agree on?

For instance...

Ask two completely different people what their idea of a "perfect moment" would be, and most likely you will get two different answers, mostly due to the people's perception of what "perfect" is. Could it be that perfection could be a selfish notion? As in, when you create something, and its perfect to you, but it isn't to those you share it with, you don't care, because you made it perfect for yourself and not others?

One thing that lends itself to the idea that there might be a universal idea, is that there are groups of people who actually share interests and common ground and often times within that common ground (music, art, cars, food, the list could go on forever) there is a shared view within that community of what is perfection relative to the base common interest.

So does that mean that there COULD be a common perception of an ultimate perfection for all?

Perhaps. But the idea of perfection could almost certainly be compared directly to the idea of religion and one God or deity ruling over us all, and being responsible for our existence.

There are large groups that agree on different ideas of the different religions, but aren't they all just different facets of the same basic idea but with different names and names for the deities?

Indeed they are.

So perhaps there is one base idea of perfection that we all might not realize but all our individual ideas of perfection at any given time are just different facets of.

Or perhaps every individual's idea of perfection could be too different from the next to be connected to a base idea?

And if either of those cases are true, what IS the base idea of perfection?

The dictionary tells us the definition is...

per·fec·tion

 

–noun

1.

the state or quality of being or becoming perfect.

2.

the highest degree of proficiency, skill, or excellence, as insome art.

3.

a perfect embodiment or example of something.

4.

a quality, trait, or feature of the highest degree ofexcellence.

5.

the highest or most nearly perfect degree of a quality ortrait.

6.

the act or fact of perfecting.

But it doesn't tell us what the basic idea of it is. Even that basic idea could be so different from person to person that it eliminates the possibility of there being one ultimate perfection.

Or does it leave it open to the chance that we just don't realize that we could all have the same subconscious base idea of it?

Besides all this, what would it take for us all to realize this subconscious idea?

Is part of being human to strive for perfection in some situations?

Perhaps.

Do we as humans perceive perfection as a necessity? If we didn't have perfection to strive for, would we still try as hard? Most likely. The competitive nature in us (some of us anyway) keeps us trying our best, as humans DESPISE failure. Success doesn't always equate to perfection for some, so I think the lack of the idea of perfection wouldn't take anything away from the feeling of succeeding.

I believe that the notion of perfection is deeply rooted in our subconscious, but it is "coded" (for lack of a better term) differently in all of us, but the basic idea or feeling remains the same in all of us whether we realize/admit it or not.

Us humans, we're interesting folk sometimes no?