We’re Missing Something…

Filed under: Uncategorized

I went to the opera last week.

I have no idea what happened, but this blonde woman sang to this short, pudgy, Hispanic guy. She held onto him, and sang something to the effect of “Blah latavia latitzia de of blah blah blah”, but for just a moment of trying to figure out why she was supposed to love this guy, who had no chemistry with her whatsoever, I heard the most beautiful sound I have ever heard. One note. One note rang through the speakers and through the air above all else and ripped my soul apart. Just as I had stood up for a coffee break and to listen to some silence, I was stopped dead in my tracks by this one note that I had heard over and over before. That night, that note was the meaning of life.

Yesterday, after passing by 800 spots of dried gum on the sidewalks, 4 people asking for handouts, 3 democratic street workers asking me if I had time for the Democratic Party, and about twenty full cabs just when I was needing one, I hurried past the grocery store, and the sound of a really good jazz trio played for tips just outside the door. The trio consisted of one horn player, wearing old tattered clothes, one keyboard player, who looked like he was doing completely fine in life, and one seemingly homeless man playing the drums on several upside down buckets, and  But the sound was worthy of a $35 ticket and a two-drink minimum.

It’s dark. Cold. Raining today. The summer of wine and roses has given away to the land of jackets, umbrellas, and gray days. But inside the cafe, the smell of freshly ground beans is flowing through the air system, so the room is filled with a rich but subtlety sweet aroma, thick enough warm your heart, but light enough to let you just sit and enjoy.

We are a culture of “finding perfection.” I’m completely guilty of it. Whether it’s a recipe, a restaurant, a bar, a performance, a tv show. I go to the Metropolitan Opera and criticize the three hundred year old story about a man selling his prized coat to save a dying woman, instead of listening to the beauty Puccini composed, and completely ignoring that I’m sitting inside one of the most famed buildings in the world. I am the most critical of critics I know, and when people ask me why, I’m honest. I’m a perfectionist. I want it to sound good, and have a good message. I want the music to be beautiful, and for the dialogue to cut to the point and stop Stephen King’ing it’s way through. What I find though, is that being a perfectionist works rather well, until you come up against a perfection that’s not your own.

True, we’re all perfectionists of some sort. But that doesn’t mean that we’re all the same perfectionists. Wikipedia defines perfectionism as the believe that perfection can be attained. Easy enough, until you start to define perfection. To me, perfection might be Bermuda, but speak to the homeless man holding your door open and his hand out, and he might say that perfection is a trash bag without holes, or a sandwich. To me, perfection might be the perfect sound. But to someone else, perfection of the same sentence might be the perfect message. The ultimate defeat comes when you realize that the same object of perfection can’t and won’t live up to everyone’s expectations. (Just to hammer in the point, Wikipedia also goes on to link perfectionism with narcissism and OCD.)

Everyday, every minute, every second, someone learns that nothing is perfect. And the world is full of things to criticize. And it becomes a pretty depressing place. Lonely. And pitiful. But when you take out the quest for perfection, the world turns into a place of experiences. And just maybe, just maybe, as you begin to live through them and love them for what they are, then every once in a while throughout all the mess, you’ll find something meaningful. Something amazing. Something exquisite.

Something beautiful.