Tuesday 24 March 2009

Perfection; a fluid man-made concept

Perfection is often the goal of everyone's lives, to obtain what they believe to be perfection. How many of these people are actually happy? Surely they will feel like they are always be settling for 'mediocre' instead of perfect. I feel like this pursuit of perfection will only plant seeds of doubt in their minds about everything.
Once a persons perception of perfection has been achieved it will soon start to slip away. They will move the bar higher and need more to think of their situation as perfect.

Most people when asked, "Are you happy in your job?" will respond negatively (searching for a statistic...) because they have set themselves a perfect job in their head which is unobtainable and subjective.
A man with no money and no job imagines having any job being perfection, nevertheless when he gets a job his idea of perfection changes to having a job with a higher salary, or one with a smaller work load, or one with more time outside, or one with less manual labour...

I guess what I am trying to say is that perfection is a dangerous goal and the fact that it doesn't exist naturally makes it even more so.

In summary the idea of perfection can be dangerous if it is an end goal. Perfection should be in things like making mistakes and learning from them. Not an environment where no one makes mistakes, there is now bad, you can never do wrong, everyone is happy.

Monday 16 March 2009

Fixing; Why doesn't the mind just scab over?

I was thinking today, how does the mind heal? I'm sure there is a text book answer that a psychologist could give me but I'm not interested in that.

The body fixes itself in a very complicated and involved way in which is in fact so complicated that it doesn't even let us know its doing it and actually prefers us to be asleep during the process. So how does that work with the mind? Sure the subconscious or whatever plays through the events of the day and sorts them out all neat and in order. However if you think of it like this, 'an incorrect exam paper answer is still incorrect whether written in perfect cursive handwriting or illegible scribble.'
So how does it work? You cant just switch off and then suddenly be better.

Some people say that 'time is a great healer' though to me all time does is makes this a little fuzzier, all the finer details are a little bit blurred. From a different perspective our subconscious mind is 'sorting' the more painful memories further back into the dark corners of your mind. This isn't going to stop you stumbling onto the memory again at some point and thinking, 'Oh yeah, that still hurts...'

It seems strange to me that an incredibly complex machine that is the human body can fix itself without quivering, but if you through in heartbreak, the loss of loved ones and you throw a spanner in the works. There is no set routine it can run through to fix the mind.
Built to fight off infections, fix cuts, just don't go getting yourself into emotional trouble. Then you're really screwed.

I just find the correlation between physical pain and mental interesting. It takes conscious effort to decide you aren't going to let the emotion control you. It takes a lot be strong.
Cuts just scab over and fall away subconsciously healed, mental anguish stabs stings and wrestles with your conscious mind and it is so important to kill it when it's young or it will just keep coming back to haunt you.

Yours in contemplation

Victor Blemish