Reflection on Perfection

You have a perfection complex? I sure as shit do.

Sometimes I really think I should just throw in the towel on this whole writing thing....I will never be as good as some of my favorite writers.

Sitting on the beach this week during a suprise Florida-Jaunt, I read Chuck Palahniuk's "Diary".  And. Oh. My. God.

I mean, not everyone will like the voice he uses...it's unique and a little tough to get into, but so damned sublime in execution.  Perfection.

I will never do that.

Then I thought about how perfect this image is -- a picture I took while sitting on said beach. Then I started picking apart my photography skills (which are, sadly, nonexistent).

And then I had a revelation. Yeah, the boat on the beach is lovely, relatable, and I managed to get a bit of the pier in the shot -- it is a moment of peace and serenity and perfect-like in at least capturing the moment. And it's okay if it isn't the same shot someone else might capture in the same moment. So many potential variables.

What if.....

What if the whole perfection-thing is just sorting through so many potential variables until a set just coheres and captures something...SOMETHING...and it doesn't really matter which set of variables as long as it does the capturing part and the cohering part?

What if....

What if I have been chasing an elusive perfection thing which is unattainable because my definition of it is based on capturing an array of cohered variables that SOMEONE ELSE has seen, and I can NEVER EVER EVER see things the same way as them, and therefore that piece of perfection is just...

Not...

Ever...

Gonna...

Happen....

What if....

What if I gave myself permission to just seek out MY OWN VERSION of perfection and the hell with anyone else's eyes and thoughts....maybe Chuck Palahniuk inadvertently gave me permission to write my own version of the world and know that somewhere, somehow, some other person in the universe will find THAT to be perfect, coherent, sublime, relatable.

What if?