So many thoughts run across inside this mind and cause disturbance on a level that I can truly see beauty when the mind is kinda numb. Silent. Undisturbed. Alone. Like there are no ripples on the lake and it looks like a total reflection of the sky. That is when the peace is. Peace is simple. Peace is when the mind stops. And I can totally see the pull of intoxicating materials - they make your brain stop, by force. And in that thoughtless state, you will probably find beauty. Maybe, this is where those substances, the drag of a cigarette and the peg of a whisky get their pull from. I mean who in their right mind would want to drink or taste something that is so awful to the tongue otherwise. c You see, it seldom happens that the mind rests. I don’t use those substances so the only thing that can calm the storm inside is nature. Go sit near a Dam, go for a drive between rows of trees or run in an empty field. That calms me down. And in one of those times, a seed of thought gave birth to this tree of thought that does not anymore resemble its origin.
We love to make things. We all do. A child loves to make paintings, or sculpt clay into a doll. Engineers love to make what they work on. And yet, when you come back to what you made about 6 months back, you will find flaws; even if it was the epitome of perfection and beauty when you finished it the last time. Why?
A very wise man once said - “You can never make something perfect, because you are imperfect.” Made sense to me. If I were to be perfect, why would I want to do anything, make any progress at all? Ever!? We are born imperfect and are destined to die that way. But that is not the reason we make imperfect things.
I think, rather feel that the reason everything we make ends up being imperfect is not because of that wisdom above, not alone at least. Maybe it is because we can’t create perfection ever, but only that which is beautiful in our own eyes. We set out to make something beautiful and maybe this weird desire to outdo ourselves and make something perfect catches us mid-way. But even there, we do falter, do we not? We end up making things that looks not-so-beautiful just 6 months later.
Maybe it is because beauty itself is a moving target. It evolves. Or “grows”.
Would you gift your loved one a beauty-full Rose made of plastic on a valentine’s day? Won’t that make more sense? It would probably express that your love is this never-changing, always beautiful, piece of perfection that does not decay and give off foul smell. But no, you would rather gift her (or him) a living one. Something with life. You know perfectly well that it will decay, it will fade into a sad view in just a day and yet, we deem that eventual decay as more beautiful. Why? Maybe because anything that is beautiful must have a potential of growth, of life (and an eventual death).
No matter what you do, you will always seek that in your craft, and never achieve it. Because that is the design of this matrix. To make something which has the potential to grow. I wonder - is that why men, being physically more powerful still seek the company of a woman. Is that the entire gist of the feminine beauty and the silent satisfaction it carries? Because they can create life itself? And that must be so fulfilling that they never go out trying to make the best painting, the best software, the best roads and machines. They do not raise armies to satisfy their ego and kill millions only to be momentary rulers of a corner of the world? Because they can create something truly beautiful; something that grows, is alive, and that creation itself must be so satisfactory that they never seek that drive of perfection, rather have this ability to build an imperfect world that makes you feel complete? I guess I would never know. I am not a woman and women themselves don’t care about these philosophical questions (at least not as much as men do).
I guess we have to just accept that nothing we make with our hands will ever be perfect. That for now, seems to be the reality.