𝑺𝒕𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑨𝒇𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝑷𝒆𝒓𝒇𝒆𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 🌼

One of my favorite passages from Henry David Thoreau’s transcendental masterpiece, Walden, is the parable of an artist who sets about to create a perfect staff. This passage, which comes from the book’s Conclusion (and which I have typed out below), was on my mind when I awoke this morning. In spite of the usual rush of my morning routine, I told myself that I would perform all of my tasks deliberately and meticulously on this day. As Thoreau illustrates through his parable, the slow pursuit of perfection is a worthwhile endeavor. In an age in which most of us are perpetually busy earning a living, climbing social and professional ladders, and managing the crises and demands of our lives, it is admirable to do something slowly and well. Here’s hoping that life presents you with an abundance of time, so that you may create something “perfect” and/or do something “perfectly”—not “perfect” in the traditional sense of the word, but “perfect” in the sense that you put all the care and effort you could muster into it. 🧡

“There was an artist in the city of Kouroo who was disposed to strive after perfection. One day it came into his mind to make a staff. Having considered that in an imperfect work time is an ingredient, but into a perfect work time does not enter, he said to himself, It shall be perfect in all respects, though I should do nothing else in my life. He proceeded instantly to the forest for wood, being resolved that it should not be made of unsuitable material; and as he searched for and rejected stick after stick, his friends gradually deserted him, for they grew old in their works and died, but he grew not older by a moment. His singleness of purpose and resolution, and his elevated piety, endowed him, without his knowledge, with perennial youth. As he made no compromise with Time, Time kept out of his way, and only sighed at a distance because he could not overcome him. Before he had found a stock in all respects suitable the city of Kouroo was a hoary ruin, and he sat on one of its mounds to peel the stick. Before he had given it the proper shape the dynasty of the Candahars was at an end, and with the point of the stick he wrote the name of the last of that race in the sand, and then resumed his work. By the time he had smoothed and polished the staff Kalpa was no longer the pole-star; and ere he had put on the ferrule and the head adorned with precious stones, Brahma had awoke and slumbered many times. But why do I stay to mention these things? When the finishing stroke was put to his work, it suddenly expanded before the eyes of the astonished artist into the fairest of all the creations of Brahma. He had made a new system in making a staff, a world with fun and fair proportions; in which, though the old cities and dynasties had passed away, fairer and more glorious ones had taken their places. And now he saw by the heap of shavings still fresh at his feet, that, for him and his work, the former lapse of time had been an illusion, and that no more time had elapsed than is required for a single scintillation from the brain of Brahma to fall on and inflame the tinder of a mortal brain. The material was pure, and his art was pure; how could the result be other than wonderful?”

#beauty #beautiful #innerbeauy #love #inspiration #thoughts #journal #diary #philosophy #psychology #psychiatry #literature #writing #art #wisdom #religion #spirituality #theology #encouragement

[EremiasRanwolf-dz]

This is a beautiful story. I can really relate to the desire for perfection. When I write I feel like I reveal worlds and people that already exist, and who have chosen me to tell their story. I really relate to the sentiments here. Thanks, Lubna.

[Valenciano]

The illusion of time, the enemy of mankind invented by our own minds, is a censor. The observer is observed.A non egocentric approach equates to perfection. True bliss is a perception of humility for the greater good of humanity. Therefore, the mind can not achieve perfection due to its deceptive nature. It comes from the heart ❤️