You pull the moist, creamy cake out of the oven. A tantalizing, mouth-watering smell of rich chocolate emanates from it. You hold your breath, hardly daring to breathe on your masterpiece. Its perfect roundness, the impeccably smooth surface, the just-right shade of chestnut... ~ You smile in contentment. This is perfection. ~
When someone has achieved a semblance of perfection, the initial high seems to drown out everything else. ~ That moment of euphoria, of a sense of complete certainty that the world is right, of self-justification at last, can at once wipe away days, weeks, even months of toil and despair. ~
Just as easily, though, an inkling of doubt wedges itself back into the mind. ~ That dreaded blemish, that fall from perfection, seems just a half-step away. Misplace your foot, and the scale tips. ~ The ice-thin surface you were treading so confidently on is suddenly jarred by an ugly crack. ~ All at once, the illusion is shattered. ~ Ice cold water engulfs you, taking your breath away. ~ As you hold your breath, your mind goes numb. ~ How did it all go wrong, you wonder? ~ What changed? ~Almost nothing. ~ Simply, your art. ~ What you have produced. ~ Your creation. ~ What's in a painting? Strokes. One after the next, you paint away, your brush dancing gracefully on the canvas. ~ Then, splat. ~ An ugly glob, born of carelessness, right in the middle. ~ Perfection, ruined. ~
Yet take a step back. ~ If you add a tiny bit of paint here, and a swipe there, that blob turns into a beautiful rose. ~ Not the perfection you were looking for, but a new, more vivid and jarring piece of work. ~ An unexpected appeal to the eye. ~
So while perfection may have produced a picture-perfect piece of artwork, failure drew your attention to a different kind of beauty - an asymmetrical beauty, a flawed beauty, a bittersweet beauty. ~ And that inspires so much more emotion than the mundane perfection, which in itself loses it special quality because it lacks dissonance. ~