The perfectionist

If someone had to ask me, off the cuff, what my ideal of perfection was I would immediately reply "A Bach fugue".

There are actually lots of other things one may safely compare to perfection when one thinks about it; a flawlessly cut diamond for instance. However, in my book, Johann Sebastian Bach's music definitely ranks first on my list.

Unkind tongues have called this musical giant from Leipzig, "the sublime sewing machine"; possibly because the execution and performance of Bach's music requires such enormous control and prodigious technique. Such is the wonderful architectural splendour and total musicality of his compositions that the emotional aspect of them is only really achieved by legends like the late lamented Glenn Gould or Wilhelm Kempff and contemporaries like Murray Perahia or Angela Hewitt.

Therefore, in my own personal quest for perfection, I am eternally hoping to create the "perfect" painting or the "perfect" article; something that would compare to a Two Part Invention or a Prelude; a flawless execution with sublime content, an almost unattainable task that makes every new painting an adventure and each new article a challenge.

Artists are rarely, if ever, happy with their work. A painting may be the flavour of the month for a limited period until a new concept, a new subject or a new technical breakthrough is achieved. The perception of an artist's work by his public is very different. Had Bach to come back to be asked what he thought of his compositions he would probably reply he was still very far from the perfection he had envisaged in his mind's eye; despite his being ranked as the world's ultimate musical genius. Such is our life on earth. We strive endlessly to collect objects, to create others, to make pots and pots of money in the hope of achieving some elusive "nirvana" which never materialises as we realise we will always fall short somewhere or simply want more.

Many, many years ago, during a Lenten retreat at college, one of the more intellectual Jesuits tried to explain heaven to us as the final attainment of perfection. He illustrated his point by going down to basics, comparing the mortal and the spiritual states of being as players on a football pitch (this was at the time when if one did not play football at St Aloysius' College one was a lesser being). I wonder now whether the football stars in my class actually understood the comparison. Without modesty I must confess that, despite my own total ignorance and ineptitude as far as football is concerned, the concept appealed to me and I could well understand the unalloyed ecstatic happiness that one experiences when real perfection is reached. If heaven were really like that, then it was well worth the trouble to attain it.

The general attitude to perfectionists is that while they are universally admired at best and envied at worst they are almost invariably pitied. I am quite sure we all know someone whose success, punctiliousness, precision, neatness and intelligence places one head and shoulders above the normal. They are a hard act to follow. A great hostess who is also a great cook runs the risk of terrifying her guests to reciprocate as their perception is that their own standards can never rival hers. A personality who has achieved something out of the ordinary is lionised but treated with kid gloves.

In reality they are human beings like you and I. While they have earned the admiration, if not adulation of the common herd, they may rue the day when their achievements have made sacred cows of them. Should they ever put a foot wrong the maxim of the higher you climb the harder you fall will be proven yet again. There is no person on earth more wretched than a fallen idol. This convinces me even more that true perfection which brings perfect happiness is only realisable in the next world; if it exists and if we ever get to it.

Therefore we live out our lives like puppies chasing their own tails, thinking we are the salt of the earth while in our heart of hearts we are fully conscious of being flawed. Our self-perceptions are statues with feel of clay. We realise that as much as the next man we are apt to fall, to make mistakes, to be ill and ultimately to die, which is the hardest thing of all to accept and which is the inevitable fate of all of us.

We spend our lives inventing metaphors for death; trying to treat it as if it did not really exist. Even when a loved one passes on, grief is transient and the sympathy one receives, though genuine at the time, is short-lived as people strive to get on with their own lives. Much as we try to fool ourselves that we are immortal we are fully conscious of our mortality and this is where the final lesson of that retreat clinches.

Without faith, hope and charity, our lives would be meaningless. To quote our own St Paul, even if we give up our bodies to be burned but do it without love, the sacrifice would signify nothing but the fulfilment of earthy vanity. Our faith, tried as it is at every turning point of our lives, undermined by the distractions of the world, cannot exist without hope that our lives, so short, fraught and insignificant, will be continued on some higher plane in the hereafter. But it is charity which is the essential ingredient for without it there is no way that the two others will get us through.

Charity is misunderstood. It is not gauged by how much money one gives to Kerygma, the tsunami victims or Id-Dar tal-Providenza.

Charity in this context is love; a disinterested and selfless love that transcends all the popular perceptions of it. Love is self sacrifice and is the only type of perfection that is truly realisable in the insane, contradictory, unjust and quixotic world we live in.

kzt@onvol.net