When I was in high school I was a very high-strung person, hell-bent on perfection, which I theorized was perfectly achievable, and everyone else in the world must have just been too lazy to get there. I made the connection in more recent years that, at that time in my life, I was forcing myself into too many holes in which I did not fit. Some of the holes were straight A's, being the best dancer in my classes, and being the best artist in my school.
The main hole was religion, cliche as it may be to fade religion. I had a good experience at my particular church and was VERY involved. The other congregates were super-friendly, and at 16, I became the president of the youth group, as well as a kindergarten Sunday School teacher. At night however, I would frequently cry in bed, terrified at the thought of infinity, and equally terrified at the thought of time ending. While weighing out my fears of infinity and finity, I decided that time ending was the much more horrifying reality, and forced myself to become more and more involved in a religion that my mind simply could not believe in. When I got to college and distanced myself from the church, I slowly realized my stress and anxiety were melting away. I don't think that religion in general is a bad choice for all people, or even that it was bad for me, but I do think that forcing myself to believe in something that I could not, or forcing myself to "be something I am not" was causing all kinds of fears and stressors to surface. Losing "God" was initially horrifying, until I realized that I wasn't losing anything. If I don't truly believe in it, I am wasting time and energy on upsetting myself. It was simply not logical.
That was the first major sigh of relief in my personal philosophies.
The second actually came at the end of my graduate program at Pafa. While writing my thesis I had to flesh out my working methods, and try to come up with the inspirational force behind what I am driven to do on a daily basis. I would suggest that everyone do this at some point, or at various points in their lives. In finding my direction, I actually loosened my grip on the concrete endpoint I had in sight for the way my life would be in the future. In writing about what I wanted for myself, I began to realized that it was a forked and windy road, and at 24, i would not be able to see the end of it, and that is beautiful. Christ, who wants to know exactly what is going to happen to them in the future? It would be dreadful.
I realized, through writing my thesis that I had a distaste for photorealism. If you are going to spend 1000 hours painting something and it is going to look exactly like a photograph, why don't you just take a photograph? That version of "perfection" actually put me off a little.
I noticed a trend:
- I like to get a 96% on a test better than a 100%. a 100% just implies that the test was easy.
- I've always liked silver better than gold.
- I like my own drawings best when something is a little weird. You know, like, someone doesn't have anatomically correct elbows or something. My drawings are absolutely the best when you can tell something is awkward, but you cannot identify what that is.
The conclusion: I love near perfection. On a scale of 1 to 10, I love 9.
Aesthetically it is the prettiest #. In numerology it is like, the top thing you can do. In spoken German, it means "no" which I love to say.
I've talked to people about 9 before, and Emily had heard about it a lot. Today she sent me an email that inspired this post:
"im working at the pma right now, writing a lesson about super heroes. im reading this article about the xmen, and it says that they "challenge us to accept the beauty of difference, the libetration of imperfection." that reminded me of you, you know, like 9. so liberating." I am totally flattered that Xmen made Em think of me.
If you live your whole life trying to be 10, you can miss out on all of the wonderful things that make you a human being. You might never get drunk and embarrass yourself, you might never let anyone get to know your hilarious flaws. If you content yourself with 9, you can always be striving, growing, knowing there is something more you can make of yourself, never plateauing, and still never regretting. 9 is bliss. It's an A-, and I have become comfortable with not being valedictorian.
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