2024-06-08

People often say: “The world is a giant shoddy stage.”

Imagine a world without that shoddy stage:

It would be static, because everything has already been built, everything is perfectly refined, with no room for improvement.

That is the “end of history” (an avatar of the perfection enforcer). Perfect architecture, perfect art, science has reached its limit. A person’s life leaves no trace in history.

If only there were such a thing as perfection.

Unfortunately, there isn’t. Unfortunately, there is no higher being to tell us what is good and perfect.

Perfection only exists in an eternal future imagination, and from that future it gives people the drive to move forward.

So, if anyone tells us what is perfect, or even where we have already achieved perfection, whether intentionally or unintentionally, they must be lying.

These lies about perfection will create beautiful but hollow skyscrapers. And the foundation propping up those skyscrapers is the flesh and blood of ordinary people.

Inside those skyscrapers are towering shoddy stages, built from pressing problems at hand, past experiences, and insufficient information.

It’s quite nice to see through their clever disguises and realize the possibility of change!

• 🔖 This passage is brilliant