I have packed my bags, I am out of here. Gone.

~ Live & Learn

yoga-lean-jpg

I have had it with perfection.
I have packed my bags,
I am out of here.
Gone.

As certain as rain
will make you wet,
perfection will do you
in.

It droppeth not as dew
upon the summer grass
to give liberty and green
joy.

Perfection straineth out
the quality of mercy,
withers rapture at its
birth.

Before the battle is half begun,
cold probity thinks
it can’t be won, concedes the
war.

I’ve handed in my notice,
given back my keys,
signed my severance check, I
quit.

Hints I could have taken:
Even the perfect chiseled form of
Michelangelo’s radiant David
squints,

the Venus de Milo
has no arms,
the Liberty Bell is
cracked.

~ Father Kilian McDonnell, “Perfection, Perfection” from Swift Lord, You Are Not 

Notes: Photo by Ravshaniya (Uzbekistan) (via Mennyfox55 and Avax.news)

30 thoughts on “I have packed my bags, I am out of here. Gone.”

  7. If one is perfect then one is on the road to decaying; with imperfection comes growth and learning and changing. I’ll stay imperfect…hopefully for a long time!

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  8. Within imperfection, lies beauty…who dictates what perfection, is? (certainly not, Madison Ave)…God knows we are imperfect, by design./// We go forth in growth, imperfectly while reaching for excellence…/// I took some photos a few years back, I call the small series “Duality, Beauty in Decay.”..

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    1. Yes. Your Madison Avenue reference reminds me of this comment:

      What is heartwarming about this is that most “small minded, small town” people don’t know this so much as this is just the only way they know… if that makes sense. It’s not until you leave and try something else and realize what you thought was so much more; what you thought was better; the dream you chase is really just an illusion. There may be so much more to life than small town living, but what the small town people often don’t know they know is that they have everything that’s important in life – family, friends, community. The rest is just fluff laid on us as “important”, “necessary” and “deserved” by the propaganda fed to us every day by the media. “By God you work hard, you deserve these luxuries in life.” What they fail to impart: Most of these luxuries are meaningless, a constant cycle of planned obsolescence, consumerism and mindless spending designed to keep you in a state of want.

      I was the ambitious one, the one that strayed far from home, chasing the dream, getting caught up in the consumerism. I’m glad that by the age of 38 I have come to realize that I had everything that was important before I left. The remainder was a constant cycle of churn, want more, want bigger, want better, want newer, want more convenient. Except it’s hard when it’s being fed to you every day by every billboard, every sign, every menu, every advert, every press release, every news story, every TV show to differentiate between want and need. When you stop to analyze what you actually need – I mean really need: Clean air, clean water, shelter, nutrition, sanitation, family, community, companionship; how much of what you’re being sold every day is truly “needed” and how much of it is a want to fulfill some notion that has been sold to you by the media?

      ~ balabaster, Hacker News

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      1. Oh, those advertisers from Madison ave…enjoyed reading piece from the Hacker News…In the past, when she was young we talked with our child often about making choices, what needs are and wants are for special times and sometimes you must wait a long time to secure that want, many pennies must be saved…she would get so frustrated at the grocery store trying to make the decision of which candy treat she was going to be taking home…the rule was “One” or “None”…and we let her know that we do not listen to whining…she learned to make a choice quickly or go with out and she knew it was a privilege to have a choice and to have a treat…she also knew that commercials taught children to badger their parents into buying something…that prevail carrot on the end of the stick…we did occasionally let her indulge, we couldn’t believe she “Needed” those bright colored, squishy, fishing lures! She was so excited to have her little bag of lures…she has told us over time how she’s never gone without what “Is” truly important…I think that for me what touched my heart was at a Father’s Day breakfast, up river at the grange when a tv crew was interviewing children about how their Dad was special…she was the only child who had an answer that was non-material in nature…one child several years older was so focused on herself and what her dad could buy her…while our daughter said that the times that her Dad spent reading to her and telling her stories he made up about adventures of animals made her no she was loved…she said she liked hiking too 🙂 She was the child that the news highlighted, that day…a friend saw the news that night and mentioned to me a few days later that what she said made an impact on his heart… We certainly aren’t perfect parents, though we have done some things, ok…

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  10. In striving for perfection, we destroy.
    So many are striving madly for the Perfection. We’re under a relentless pressure to measure up to by the media, as well as certain caste levels who peer down. Its there, where ever you go.
    and, What immeasurable strength it takes. To just say…. Stop. I. AM. DONE.

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    2. Keeping up with the Jones’s isn’t sustainable…a man’s measure isn’t in being material …one shouldn’t waste their time comparing themselves to another, so counter productive…people need to appreciate and learn of contentment…it does take strength to say Stop!

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