The Miracle of Imperfection

It’s pretty simple: Life is change. Existence, which we constantly try to control, is nothing but never-ending movement. Forget about planning your life around minute and carefully designed goals. The truth is, unpredictability will always be a factor to consider because transformative movement brings unexpected results. Moreover, not only are change and transformation unavoidable, but it is important to think about progress and movement as intrinsically related to regression and chaos. In other words, as Edgar Morin puts it, every form of organization that comprises ‘work’ —starting with the stars and ending with human beings— produces its own ‘chaos’ or disorder. Consequently, it strives for its own self-reorganization but eventually ends in death. Stars and humans alike die: every progress or movement is partial, provisional, and the result of chaos and regression.

Coming to terms with the duality of progress and decay is, I believe, a condition for happiness. The past is gone and the future cannot be foreseen. All we have is the present, with its accidents, its problems, its uncertainties, and yet, in Cioran’s words, “Nous sommes tous au fond d’un enfer dont chaque instant est un miracle” We are all deep in hell and each instant in it is a miracle. Even in Cioran’s dark style, this quote is beautiful because it is true. Every instant, no matter how imperfect, how flawed, how damaged it seems, is a miracle that we had no way of knowing was coming, and just being given the possibility of experiencing it, now, is a gift. Now, just in itself is perfection.