The Insitance on Perfection by the Imperfect

Very well put.

We want "perfection" in ourselves - we do our best, but become dissatisfied when we don't reach goals we should have seen as unrealistic.

Worse perhaps we expect "perfection" in others, or in things like public services - and cannot understand that though the people involved are usually doing the best they can, nothing can ever be 100% efficient, 100% free of breakdowns oro failures. Nor understand that our own plans are always a bit of a gamble, always carry some risk of one or another hazard, slip or failure.

The rarer the problem or lower the risk the worse it is because it moves the expectation from an sort of catastrophism ("it's always happening" - really?) to an sense of false security.


This is an unusual example of this expectation of 100% perfection meeting unexpected failure; affecting me. It was many years ago - afore portable telephones even.

Travelling to visit friends in NE London, I arrived at Waterloo station on time, and studied the Underground map to see where I needed change trains. As we slowed to that junction I stood up - and nearly fell over as the train suddenly accelerated hard instead and hared into the next tunnel. Startled, I alighted at the next stop Northwards and took the next train back. This time we ran straight through the junction.

I alighted at the next stop Southbound, where I learnt the junction had been closed by an electrical fire, found a telephone kiosk and rang my friends.

As I waited at the entrance for my host to collect me, I discreetly watched and listened to the early-evening confusion this breakdown had caused.

I concluded the most confused were the locals, because a very rare event had broken their familiar ways. Whereas we who visit the city only rarely are likely to be on edge, constantly verifying our locations and routes, aware of the risk of the untoward including our own navigation mistakes; always ready for possible escape-routes.


That was a rare type of event, a technical one behind the scenes at that, so naturally unexpected. Yet even then, we so often hear "Heads must roll"; "Who is responsible?" etc. The message is the expectation as we are personally perfect, anyone operating any human-made system, and the system itself, must always be 100% perfect.

Doings one's best, it seems, is not good enough - though admission of imperfection comes in organisations following some fault or wrong-doing apparently having no staff, yet "issuing a statement" blandly saying things like, "We are committed to..." .

We are all human and humans are not "perfect" - yet we expect ourselves to be perfect and everyone else, even better.

Very well considered.

I must admit I've not often thought about that, but have long noticed that so many people expect perfection of systems or services. Thery fail to realise two aspects.

The first is that no human-made system can be ever be 100% perfect in design or operation - people make mistakes or misjudge things, yet somehow that's treated as if wilful wrong-doing. The fault is not in the operators, but the system might be insufficiently protected against simple errors.

The second is that artificial things can wear out, break down unexpectedly, be damaged by external attacks like fires, floods and criminals - yet somehow so many imagine this should be impossible. Then when the unfortunate operators try to perform repairs or servicing to minimise break-downs, they are villified if the necessary work temporarily inconveniences the users - they (the operators) can't win!

I can think of three text-book examples of this, and all come down to people who are surely not perfect themselves, expecting perfection in others. Sorry - I am hopeless at remembering dates (I am not perfect!) but these are all within the last few decades:

1) Italy: Senior geological service manager arrested after an earthquake was a lot more sever than predicted. Earthquakes are notoriously not predictable.

2) Britain: Weather-forecaster Michael Fish villified over a storm being worse than predicted. Storms are not easy to forecast, even less easy in his day (1990s). Besides, he was right: we did not have a "hurricane".

3) Germany: A train left a station, entered a single-track section and collided with one already approaching from the other end. Fiorst action? Prosecute anyione the Police thought had casued it, the lower the rank the better.

4) Greece: Almost the same type of railway accident - the prosector's victim was the station-master who gave the drive "right away".

NB: I do not know the outcomes of either prosecution.

The common thread is reactions by very imperfect people, to events they could not understand, largely by basic technical ignorance but also by inability to imagine imperfection in other people and the systems they operate.

Natural events are very difficult to predict; but to find the underlying cause in the railway accidents I would ask if the railways had any built-in protection from human operational errors. If not, then yes, human error - but way back in the system's design, by people not foreseeing all possibilities including human fallibility in subsequent operation.

,,,,,

There is though, another aspect of that fallibility with results making it impossible to identify quite what, as the dead cannot speak. This is lost attention or other momentary lapses.

The locomotive driver who caused the 1952 Harrow & Weadstone Station railway disaster, was apparently matched in the 1980s Moorgate crash on London Underground. We cannot know but I wonder if the respective drivers had become somehow mentally "lost", maybe only for seconds, but long enough for catastrophe. (Less excuseably that way though, at Harrow.)

Some of the so-called "Bermuda Triangle" disappearances may be similar but all those resulted from people failing somehow - usually incomprehensibly, but investigations revealed a few losses were by wilful negligence and/or pure ignorance.

;;;;;

In the end, perhaps the greatest human weakness is the inability to acknowledge simple human fallibility, and to understand it. Blame is much easier, even when the failure is by no means intended.

Recently, the phycisist Prof. Brian Cox pointed out on the radio that the human brain is most complex system known in the cosmos - mechanisms like quantum physics being comparatively simple.

Yet evn in full health it can still let us down!

This is a very sane, and very kind, post. I hope that many people read it, and take your words to their hearts.

Very thought provoking x

Even that 1% who conform to norms of beauty should remember that there will always be someone more beautiful, or at least someone who is regarded as more beautiful, and that beauty fades or at least changes.

What's a perfect color?
How about a perfect temperature?

A perfect sound?
A perfect smell?
A perfect rock?
A perfect circle?

Can you think of anything that is perfect?
Or is everything already perfect as is?

The pursuit of perfection oftentimes leads to dissatisfaction.

Imperfection is the optimal state of being. It reflects a dynamic whereby change thus life becomes possible.