We live in a world of limits—budgets, schedules, fences around our yards. They can feel burdensome, but, if we embrace the meaning they define, actually invite us to become more creative. One impossibility opens up a possibility—and perhaps an even better one.
Just as, in language, we need limits (definitions) in order for meaning to be known and communicated, the limits of our lives define the space and resources we have to work with. We are challenged to look more closely at what we already have, to recognize the beauty there, to ponder how desires can be realized within the reality of the present.
There remains an illusion that perfect freedom awaits us in some limitless, open region in which all dreams are accomplishable, all desires fulfilled. That sense of perfect fulfillment may await us, in another life, but the truth of this one is that our responsibilities to and for others and the confines of our circumstances are what we need for who we are meant to be.
I notice this especially in interior design. The fun of the process picks up when we start to address the obstacles and limits of a space or the obstacles and limits of our lives. Although the idea of a totally clean palette and infinite possibilities excites the imagination, I find myself more engaged when problem areas and obstacles arise. They narrow the options, calling for focus and strategy. They also clarify the way forward. I’m no longer looking for just any light fixture but for one this size, this shape, with these colors. And with that effort comes an unexpected freedom.
Beginning in the middle, in the existing stuff—however dated, rusty, dirty, or blemished—seems to me particularly human and refreshing. To bring beauty into what we already possess—this is perhaps most glorious. It is redemption.
Similar to the refreshing reality that limits breed creativity, the futility of perfection as a goal was impressed upon me anew recently. Some of us—me included—like to consider ourselves perfectionists, but, as I realized, this is not an honest aspiration nor an achievement. It is an excuse for not moving forward.
Our homes often seem a place wherein this self-defeat unfolds, and culture has hardly helped. Magazines, catalogues, blogs, Instagram—all tend to give us images of the perfect. Or we at least often perceive them as perfect. With these images in our minds, it is easy to turn from the present needs of our own houses, the limits of our budgets, the desires of our children—away from the real work. Then sly discouragement sets in, furthering the gap between the ideal and our condition.
This thought of perfection is akin to that thought of a limitless space—both present deep within our humanity, elusive and persuasive, but unsatisfying and fruitless without the incarnate needs of today, tomorrow, this place, here. “Love calls us,” Richard Wilbur wrote, “to the things of this world.”
Love also calls us to an interior examination: In what realms of life is the illusion of perfection preventing growth? Which limits have I come to resent instead of to embrace as definitions for meaning and creativity? Even the most phlegmatic of us might find a bit of perfectionism within, that is, a habit of excusing ourselves from persevering.
Beauty, it seems, is the proper end of our efforts, the one that both works with our limits and transcends them—almost in spite of us. Rather than “perfect,” what can be made more beautiful? Or, where is there already beauty that we can accentuate? What can we make with what we’ve been given?
Loved reading this, thank you!