Is perfection overrated?
Join Our Community Subscribe to Paul's PostsPerfection in its literal form is a myth. We strive for perfection in our systems, our lives, our friends and come away frustrated.
What we likely mean is perfect including the inevitable flaws, but not all of us see it that way.
If I had to guess, I’d imagine perfectionism is more about our need for approval.
If one grows up believing “I am what I achieve and how well I achieve it”, then perhaps you’re in the lot that struggles a bit when everything doesn’t go according to plan.
That’s alright. There’s certainly nothing wrong with seeking approval nor is there anything wrong with building a life around achievements—only, it can be a bit tough at times.
It’s one thing to seek the perfect in our toys if that makes us happy. I worry when perfectionism is focused on what will others think? That’s a tough place to be and when I feel that sentiment invade my being, I try laughing at myself and letting go. Laughter helps me.
Perfect happens when you’re feeling good about life.
Perfect in a literal sense is not a myth at all. The word has a very simple Latin origin, “per”and and “facere” or “fecit”, meaning to do something completely, or something done completely. (In Latin the adverb usually precedes the verb, so I recall.) So you can do a jigsaw puzzle perfectly, or a crossword, but when the final state of something is subjective it can never be objectively completed. So maybe some audiophiles have a problem more with etymology than sound.
Perfect is a word that seems to be overused. To me it’s meaning is more a personal ‘changeable goal’. The exceptions exist in the mathematical world and even then you could ask what is the perfect formula? What or who is the perfect human? If you had the perfect amplifier or DAC would you know it? Given perfect in the speaker realm has not been achieved.
Life is compromise and choices. The are as many ideas of perfect as there are people.
I have never been to a perfect live performance, in the sense that there was nothing which could have been improved. The acoustics were less than ideal, the balance between the instruments could have been better, and that is just relating to sound quality. Even if you can define what perfection is you are never going to achieve it. Better just to aim for improvements, and recognize that the final goal is indefinable and unachievable.
In engineering a product, perfection is not a destination that can ever be reached, but instead a never ending journey.
Too often in engineering striving for perfection in a product culminates in the failure to produce a commercially viable or producible design.
So in our never ending quest for the Holy Grail of audio perfection, one should never forget to stop frequently and take long drinks from less than perfect cups.
As I have gotten older I have become better at seeing the beauty in the imperfect. I know the Japanese aeshetic of wabi-sabi is overused and was trendy for a while but it does capture the essence of what I have learned. When my youngest son requested a decent camera to dabble in photography the advice I gave him was to attempt to capture the beauty of the subject. Anyone can take a good photo of a beautiful sunset or panoramic vista. One of my favorite photos was taken by my wife on her iPhone while we were visiting Stonehenge. Everyone else was taking pictures of the henge. She took a beautiful photo of a weathered fence post with rusted strands of fence wire that was framing the vibrant colored poppies in the field.
How does this relate to audio? I haven’t a clue. I do know that I am much happier and content when I seek beauty rather than perfection.
Paul said ‘Laughter helps me’.
Hence the quote ‘Laughter is the best medicine’.
Similarly, the best doctors are Dr Diet, Dr Quiet and Dr Merryman.
Dr Quiet? Probably not best suited to an audiophile.
“Truth is beauty and beauty is truth and that is all you need to know” I think Keats said this or maybe some other poet-does it matter?
But my next door neighbor Boris said” Hey Larry, watch out when you drive in So Flo today”. Now that is poetic! Its meaningful! That has a tonality that upstages all of Keats, Byron and Elliot and my PS Audio, Musical Fidelity and other gear. It had a tone that was pure! Ill never forget his message-especially when I encountered a driver going backwards at about 30 mph in front of me as I was relaxing driving my wife’s new super luxury auto. It is a strange experience seeing the car in front of you getting closer, rapidly, as your moving forward!
It was like the Doppler Effect in visual form! We audiophiles can never get away from the sonic mentality we have as we convert a perilous situation to something audio.
So how did this audiophile position come into my existence? Tinnitus! I developed Tinnitus ! Upon the introduction of Tinnitus into my life, bilaterally of course, I ventured into a diagnostic realm to make sure it was not the warning sign of an acoustic tumor-then the quest for relief! Behavioral therapy, tinnitus maskers, ginko biloba, etc. Well, knowing as much as I do about the treatment array and realizing I don’t like snake oil, I immediately immersed in Audio! Audio! Audio!
As a result of the aforementioned, I declared my home a “tinnitus free” arena which resulted in audio gear in all rooms, well not all-I did spare a closet or two. Now tinnitus became my best friend and financial partner! The best part of it all is that the music that I listen to does mask the Tinnitus- a great rational for a hefty expense- it beats a tax deduction!
So I have discovered Truth and Beauty- Thanks Mr.Keats. Well, at least I got something out of undergraduate school (AKA sleep-away camp)!
What a Hobby!
Larry
One of my favorite Buddhist Koans = “The measure of a man is not what he has achieved, but what he has become.”
“There’s certainly nothing wrong with seeking approval”
” I worry when perfectionism is focused on what will others think? ”
I’ve posted before that some of the best con men I ever met told me that my most vulnerable spot was my ego. It allows other people to manipulate me by inflating it or puncturing it. If you have an ego, the best thing you can do for yourself is to get rid of it. Replace what others think of you with your own internal standards. Have you pleased yourself? The only exception is business whether you are employed and have to please a boss or selling something to a market and have to please customers. There you have to please others. You can try to please friends and family but it doesn’t always work. One funny thing I’ve notices about women is that they are never wrong. Whatever happens that’s bad it’s someone else’s fault. They invariably remember every slight real or imagined through their entire lives and don’t let go of it ever.
I can think of only two things that are perfect, the universe whether we understand it or not. This assumes that the universe is rational and the same laws whatever they are apply always and everywhere. The only perfect thing humans ever created is mathematics. That’s because it’s a closed system of abstract logic that is coherent within itself. Unfortunately mathematics cannot be used to accurately and perfectly describe the universe. But it is the best tool we have.
How about hi fi sound systems? No matter how proud and pleased you are with what you have designed, built, or bought it is not perfect if your goal is to hear what something might have sounded like live by playing a recording. In fact at the current state of the art it’s still no more than canned music. Much better sound systems are possible but not the way this industry is going about it. It builds and sells endless variants of the same ideas expressed a million different ways but all of them have similarities from the cheapest boombox to the most expensive audiophile high end sound system they all operate on the same ideas. To make a real improvement you have to look at that idea, look at the goal, and figure out why the idea can never come close to achieving the goal. While we can’t achieve perfection, we can gain better understanding of a problem that will allow for different approaches to solving it. Those approaches may not work but at least they get you thinking outside the mental rut you have trapped yourself into. Does it take skill in science, engineering, and mathematics? Yes, you won’t stumble on it by accident. It requires powerful analytical tools. This is what a STEM education is supposed to deliver that other educations don’t. A STEM education has as its goal to teach you how to think, not what to think. This is why it has a huge advantage in solving problems. Here’s what a non stem education offers you and why it’s a waste of time and money.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c00GPvns31U
Thanks for sharing a bit of your personal guiding Philosophy Paul. Words of wisdom about “need for approval” I’ll share with my sons. Life IS less stressful when humor “runs through it” and if we
can avoid defining ourselves by worrying about what others (may) think of us.
Thanks for reading. Sons like your sons have a great father.
Perfection is a moving target. It can be achieved, but not sustained. Those nights (or days) where the system clicks and everything is just right are fleeting. That is what lets me know that I am on the right path. But it is a journey without a specific destination that I am on. That is to say that as things change, so does where I am headed. So I can enjoy those moments of perfection, as long as I realize that they are not permanent. That’s what keeps me on this quest, the next bit of perfection to be had.
Grandma says I’m perfect.
Sophism was a Greek philosophical concept that originally pertained to individuals being skilled at particular crafts and extended to general wisdom in terms of politics et cetera. So in its original form Paul could be considered a sophist in the production of audio equipment. The modern word sophisticated derives from this idea in that it implies the ability to manage complex issues and arguments. The idea of perfection existed as an intellectual construct only, not as a reality. The other concept that comes to mind is that expounded by Alberti about 600 years ago that the artist should seek to represent the beauty of nature, not imitate it, so formulates an idea of perfection that is not the real thing. In practical terms, the concept was fairly short-lived. So I have always found this idea of seeking perfection as rather trite because for thousands of years artisans and philosophers have understood that it is impossible to achieve.
Perfection does not exist. It is a feel good word to describe one’s egotistical response to one’s best effort. One’s best effort is just that nothing more. No best effort is without faults. Even the universe is not perfect. Things keep banging into each other and annihilating each other. In conclusion it is an egotistical expression nothing more. An extreme form of hyperbole. Humans are imperfect and so is the world they live in so the best way is to accept one’s imperfections, try to improve and be happy. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you is the golden rule. Criminally challenged excepted of course. Regards.k
We can not imagine perfection.
We could not return to this world if we did.
It would have at that point become intolerable.
The only perfection we have now are perfect examples of imperfection.
Perfection is a concept, a direction, an asymptote; and it can be deliberately enabled by specific criteria and limits within which perfection is obtainable. It has a fluid relation with the absolute – a thing can be “more perfect”, but can’t be “very perfect”.
I have worked on some of the most perfect works of man: ultra-pure water, and its application which is perfect (enough) Silicon semi-conductor integrated circuits. Synthetic water purification long ago exceeded the most pure water on Earth, which was water trapped millions of years ago in impermeable formations. Ultra-pure process water is beyond 1 part per billion impurity (9 nines), and is used in 200 to 500 wet steps of Silicon manufacturing to produce electronic machines with trillions of working parts.
My rule of recording audio is “Human Is Better Than Perfect”. This is understood by music practitioners to mean that ink on paper only conveys a fraction of the meaning of music, and always the lesser half. Music comes from fingers and lips, and conveys the rhythms of breathing and heartbeat which course through the body and modulate the sound. It also includes the rhythms and inflections of emotion and the vibrations of thought itself. It reacts to the audience and the zeitgeist of current events. It even includes the micro-sounds of the direct environment, whether city or Nature which are never completely silent.
I only listen to live recordings, which always include these human factors. I have no interest in the fantasy world of studios where all the “imperfections” are smoothed away leaving a fantasy world with no errant frequencies, but mangled time. Every possible audio processing step that changes the sound, every knob in a recording studio, causes inherent AUDIBLE time distortion. REAL recordings have every microsecond laid out in precise order so that a forensic accounting, no matter how fine, will confirm the minute details of an event that took place between humans with all the imperfections that prove it was not falsified.
If nothing in the recording is added, subtracted, moved, adjusted or spliced then it is valid. This is my goal of perfection.
Therefore my ideal format is DSD because you can’t process a one bit recording. This is also why it is an anathema to most recording, mixing and mastering engineers and producers, because they can’t make their mark on the sound. Mixing is distortion. Zero knob rules!