Perfection and Perception

On the short trip across that little pond called the Atlantic Ocean a friend of mine and I got into a philosophical discussion on We The Living. We talked about how the Story of the Viking and the philosophy behind it is that the internal infinite possibilities held within a single individual versus the ideals of the community and the infinite possibility of the whole. That led us to the conversation held between Kira and Andrei about God. The discussion is on how if one believes in God then one doesn't believe in life-because "whatever anyone chooses to call God -- is one's highest conception of the highest possible. And whoever places his highest conception above hiss own possibility thinks very litle of himself and his own life." This goes back to the Viking and the infinite possibilities within the individual. Kira goes onto say, "It's a rare gift, you know, to fell reverence for your own life and to want the best, the greatest, the highest possible, here, now, for your very own. To imagine a heaven and then not to dream of it, but to demand it." This made us think of perfection and how Kira then according to this passage perceives perfection--in the here and now.

As we continued to talk about Kira's perfection and how it is different from our own views of perfection, we came to realize that even our ideas on perfection were different and how if we were to gather defitions of perfection from everyone on the plane, each one would have a different idea of perfection (if only slightly). We then turned to how Kira perceived perfection through striving for the undefeated life and how that her definition is very dependent on situation in life. Rand describes this book as the closest thing to an autobiography that she would ever write-that the story is fiction, the setting is real and the ideals and philoshophy of Kira's are her own. With that thought we began to think of this ideal of Rand's placed in the real world. It started to become very clear how our perceptions of perfection could create internal struggles and detremental problems within individuals and how it could begin to divide groups of people.

For the individual, my best description of the internal struggle was this years suprise hit and Academy Nominee for Best Picture-Black Swan. The main character, Nina, is a prima ballerina who's dream is of playing the lead role in the classic ballet Swan Lake. Throughout the film Nina pushes herself to achieve this goal, to dance the perfect dance.

As the trailer portrays Nina's striving for perfection leds to her loss with realitity and ultiminately (SPOILER ALERT) her death. Nina's struggles are much like Kira's who stays with an abusive lover just for the sake of the potential that his life holds and the promise of making it abroad. This goal in Kira's life, to make it to the undefeated life abroad is her idea of perfection and leads to her the same fate as Nina in Black Swan.

Will this always be the price to pay to reach perfection, or is that why we mere mortals should leave perfection to the gods and just dream of the day we might see heaven?