Up@dawn 2.0

Friday, October 14, 2016

Chasing Perfection

(H3) Do you ever just look at the world around you and wonder how beautiful it is and how much more it must have been before humans destroyed it with their own ideas of perfection? Skyscrapers and housing developments replacing forests and valleys, chasing our own version of a perfect reality. Do we even really know what defines perfection? Is it just a certain amount of reality's imperfections we deem acceptable? We “correct” the world around and make the landscape bend to our will. I have such mixed feelings about the world we have manipulated into our own. Sometimes I look around and see beautiful architecture and mind-blowing technological advances and I think, wow, what a great age to be alive. Simple things that we take for granted, like how a car or a camera works, amaze and inspire me to explore and contribute to this man-made world in which we live. Then I feel appalled by the excesses. The hundreds upon hundreds of cars lined up in parking lots and traveling down extensive roads, the unnecessary amount of restaurants and brands of foods in grocery stores, and the obnoxious amount of people constantly glued to their phones walking down the street. I'm not innocent of abusing any of these "luxuries" and more, not by far. Now, I find myself feeling guilty for walking through the world and not being a part of it, the real world, the way it was without our interference. Recently when walking to and from class, I’ve been trying to notice the beauty of our campus. The abundant number of squirrels scurrying about, everywhere! The chorus of birds hidden in the trees. The way Walnut Grove looks when the sun is peaking through the trees, illuminating every leaf. You know what these all have in common, humans have not influenced these stunning events. Yes, humans planted the trees, but nature took over from there. I guess the purpose of this long rant is to ask you if you are taking the time to notice the environment you live in, not the people or buildings but the trees and the landscape. After all, isn’t a vibrant sunset more perfect than a structure made of metal, glass, and stone.

3 comments:

  1. (H3) There is a Japanese concept called Wabi Sabi. Wat is is basically imperfect perfection. It is accepting that we do not live in a world of perfections but a world of flaws. A world where a perfect paining a a stray line from the paint running. A world where that perfect building is actually leaning one degree to the right. It is accepting the imperfections of the world and finding the beauty in it.

    This is how I like too look at the world. I am very well aware of all the problems it has, more so than I would like actually, but I have learned to realize that what makes this world remarkable is not what makes it perfect, but what makes it imperfect and how that brings out the perfection.

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  2. Hmmmm. In my opinion, I think perfection would be the natural world around us and by destroying it, we are only starting further from perfection.

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  3. Can we really say that what we are destroying by building these updated technologies like you said no one really knows what perfection is what if nature is perfection?

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