Being a Flawed and Imperfect Human
The archetypical image of the creative as an emotionally unstable and solitary individual has been fortified as a romantic narrative within our society. The periodic suffering and despair of life can indeed induce bouts of intense creativity, and whilst these can be artistically productive and rewarding, the reality of the situation is far less glamourous than the idealised version portrays. The genesis of this suffering, and the uncertainty and confusion as to why things may have happened the way they did, compels a reconsideration of the basic presuppositions about oneself. In the midst of this all-consuming emotional chaos, it begs the question: am I really who I think I am? Is my own self-perception built on shaky ground?
The antidote to these intense feelings of self-doubt is the recognition that being flawed and imperfect is the pact that comes with human existence. In my opinion, it is within those crevices of imperfection where the beauty of intimate human connection, the despair of interpersonal miscommunication and all the other intricacies and nuances of life are to be found. We are simultaneously endowed with a deeply self-conscious awareness of this reality, a fate which is blind to class, race, status or any other group category.
Below is a rather lengthy passage from one of Carl Jung’s public lectures. I include it only because I think that every word is embedded with immense relevance, which I will explain why below:
“Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses. I am the oppressor of the person I condemn, not his friend and fellow-sufferer. I do not in the least mean to say that we must never pass judgment when we desire to help and improve. But if we wish to help a human being we must be able to accept them as they are. And we can do this in reality only when we have already seen and accepted ourselves as we are.
Perhaps this sounds very simple, but simple things are always the most difficult. In actual life it requires the greatest art to be simple, and so acceptance of oneself is the essence of the moral problem and the acid test of one’s whole outlook on life.
That I feed the beggar, that I forgive an insult, that I love my enemy in the name of Christ, all these are undoubtedly great virtues. What I do unto the least o’ my brethren, that I do unto Christ.
But what if I should discover that the least amongst them all, the poorest of all beggars, the most impudent of all offenders, yeah, the very fiend himself, that these are within me, and that I myself stand in need of the alms of my own kindness, that I myself am the enemy who must be loved.
Anyone who uses modern psychology to look behind the scene of his own life will admit that to accept himself in all his wretchedness is the hardest of tasks, and one which it is almost impossible to fulfil. The very thought can make us sweat with fear. We are therefore only too delighted to choose, without a moment’s hesitation, the complicated course of remaining in ignorance about ourselves while busying ourselves with other people and their troubles and sins. This activity lends us a perceptible air of virtue, by means of which we benevolently deceive ourselves and others”.
This is a beautiful passage. When I see a homeless person on the street, a drug addict outside a clinic or a Honduran father scrambling across national borders to secure safety for his family, I recognise that if I had been born into the very same circumstances I too would most likely be leading a similar life. I am not special. Just gratefully aware of my good fortune amidst the genetic lottery of life. For I believe that everyone carries within them an untouched, divine essence but that within the human realm we must acknowledge that our existence is embedded with limitations — be they physical, psychological or emotional.
How do we accept such imperfections in both ourselves and in others? Friedrich Nietzsche spoke of the modern necessity for self-deification in our ‘post-God’ age. In the absence of the traditionally external religious framework to provide us with a metaphysical blueprint, Nietzsche realised that we would instead have to rely on our own selves for meaning in the face of life’s adversities because science — wonderful at explaining how the world works — cannot tell us how to live by descriptive ethics alone. As David Hume noted, “you cannot derive an ought from an is”, a concept known as the ‘naturalistic fallacy’ in philosophy.
I am not sure any individual can bear the heavy burden of absolute, exclusive self-reliance — although it is a fascinating motif. The idea of self-deification does hint at a deeper truth though. For I believe that acceptance of our imperfections comes from the aforementioned recognition that at our core, in our purest form, we are all divinely perfect and complete Beings. This is actually how most of us treat one another in our daily interactions. Imperfection is merely a mental construct created and projected by the egoic mind. This view of mine has been formulated almost exclusively through direct experience, for there is little to no intellectual credibility in espousing such esoteric views in our secular age of (supposedly incorruptible) rationality and reason.
One only need consider how the Western political and social ideal of a ‘Utopia’ has never historically materialised. For it is an inconceivable outcome. Societies and institutions are, after all, merely a collection of human beings coming together under a shared ideology. The quest for the ideal of perfectionism is blindly ignorant of the psychological realities of homo sapiens, and thus has never come to fruition (despite both violent and non-violent attempts to do so).
Conclusion
Soren Kierkegaard stated that existential anxiety was an indication that one was, in fact, alive. Our pre-disposition to focus on our own imperfections perhaps points to an underlying angst about our mortal impermanence, and the idealised lives we aspire to embody. Occupying and embracing an emotional awareness of oneself embeds life with an intensity that, when viewed from a cumulative perspective and with hindsight, feels absolutely worthwhile. Yes, such vulnerability will inevitably lead to exposure of painful situations and to the accumulation of battle scars. But in my humble opinion, this is how life should be lived. Fully, taking all of our glories, tragedies and imperfections with equal stoicism.
I will only ever comprehensively understand my own subjective experience, but on this basis I attest that those moments in life where things align, where one’s expectations match experiential reality, are blissful beyond description. It is where our existence and our essence align.
The Ithaca Diaries
