Trouble! That starts with "T" and that rhymes with "P"

and that stands for.... Perfection.

So I know my proverbial Shelves are quite dusty. I've been gone for a month bring busybusybusy and always thinking. I've had a number of things I've felt were writing worthy (read: "blog-worthy" but I hate that phrase) and a few things that were just fun.

I have had a few profound thoughts about Muppets and traffic patterns and I have a new fashion crush that I'll get to. I'm instituting a new weekly staple: Fashion Friday! Many frivolous and totally uneducated but enthusiastic opinions to come. You've been warned.

My time going from funny thing to funny thing on the webbernet has been cut down drastically by this new concept called a "job" so I've been running thin on material but I'll do my best to keep Wednesday Giggles going as well. Have no fear.

However for today - there is something that I feel the need to be bloggy about. Its something I've felt a serious contempt for lately. More than I usually do too and it is the irrational Culture of Perfectionism I've been a personal witness to (read: victim of) as an American, as a woman, as a member of my family, and as a member of the LDS faith. I truly eschew it. I find it to be more debilitating than any behavior modifying medication, illegal, or abusive substances. Its horrible and its a mental game that we've all bought into.

Preemptive disclaimer: LDS-wise, Christian-wise, I am actively choosing to be a follower of Christ. He was perfect, is perfect. In every sense of the word. He invited me to be like Him, or in otherwise perfect. However - what I seriously overlook sometimes is that, for ME, its a process. Its a day to day effort of trying to be better, of practicing excellence. I whole heartily embrace that concept and hold it VERY close so please don't mistake my rants on here as me defending lethargy, laziness, thoughtlessness or selfishness. Quite the opposite. I've found the more I've prayed to see, work, and react to my world in love, in Godly love, that the stronger these ideas grow in my mind.

The gist of it is - we totally don't get it. We don't understand Perfection. We think we do but we have no clue. ESPECIALLY how to get there.

I think that our concept of perfection is cantankerous. It is something that eats at us, breaks us down, discourages us and defeats us before we ever start anything. It is an arresting concept to us.

A bit of background;

I'm a dyslexic kid. I always have been. I had to learn a lot differently than the rest of the world and I did so by learning to listen very close to what people said to me and to recognize patterns. In turn these default mental settings have helped me to become a fairly perceptive (and introspective) adult. As much I've come to realize that I was also surrounded by a lot of excellence as a kid.

Let me clarify terms here too.
Perfection is basically a 4 letter word to me. Its alienating and just conjures up frustration. It instantly inspires disappointment and inaction. I'm not an inaction kind of girl.

Excellence (to me) is a quality that chases a moment or is made of a bunch of little moments that string a beautiful something together. Its a much more obtainable thing, for me at least. Its a concept thats possible to made into a habit, to be learned, that incorporates a process of thinking, action, reaction, assessment, modification and reapplication. I love it and find it a much more healthier governing value.

I will be using those terms to explain myself from here on.

This all may be disjointed and far too long of a post but bear with me.

I'm surrounded by a lot of perfectionists, family, friends and what not. I don't like what it does to them. I don't like who it makes them become. They become ridged, severe, censuring people. This isn't necessarily expressed and lashed outwards. Its worse. These people ruthlessly beat themselves up because they're not perfect despite their best efforts. Because they're not successful, wealthy, ruthlessly sought out by the opposite sex, Olympic athletes and American Idols they're a failure. They beat themselves up and worse, they stop trying. They stop trying to be better, to think harder, to take a different angle on something. They give up because they've bought into this air brushed, pedestaled ideal of "how its supposed to be" and if its not that way it doesn't count.

I flat-footed and bold-faced rebuke that idea.

When did it become a mortal sin to fail at something? I've heard failure regarded as the last great American taboo. We won't talk about it. We fear it. We hedge up our entire lives avoiding it, denying that it even exists. Well - its here, its real, its an everyday reality and most importantly its NOT our enemy.

I may be an absolute fool but failing at something isn't a crime. If you only stay on a meal plan for 2 weeks or if you fail a class or if you lose a game or declare bankruptcy. That's not the worst it can get. Those aren't good things by any means, but they're not the worst thing either. GIVING UP is a much greater offense. Not trying again, not learning, not growing, losing love for yourself - THAT is greater sin. That is what my prayer is that we can shift our cultural disgust for that character flaw.

Its a delicate insanity that we even subscribe to this perfection thing because we're all human. We all make mistakes. We all get angry. We've all skinned our knees. We've all broken someone's heart or drove by someone that needed help. We've ALL cursed at one point or another. We all have scars. And you know what, all that to me is beautiful. All of that is a lived life. And the fact that people are still getting up, are still saying their prayers, are still attempting to tell someone that they love that they love them, to love themselves. THAT is excellence. That is real courage, to not be defeated by the mistakes you made yesterday.

I mean, where did we even pick up this idea that we have the luxury of giving up? Life doesn't stop because of one defeat, one disappointment, even a string of defeats or disappointments. Life is a 90/10 game. 90% of our day is muck, it's struggle, its heartache (and believe me, I'm carrying a very heavy heart right now), its inconvenience and dirt. But 10% is pay off, is getting it right, and getting it right the right way (that does mean something and makes sense. Just think about it a little), and you know what. I'm OK with that.

I know I have a good many regions in my life that I need to improve, that I've failed at, but you know what? I am not my defeats. I am the string of small moments after those defeats that gets back up and tries again.

And - well - thats all I have to say I guess. Be nicer to yourselves and keep trying.

More than the Sum of Our Parts

So I've looked back on my blog and I've realized its become the nutritional textual equivalent of the Sweet Factory at the mall -

I've had a number of things on my mind that I've discussed with whatever obliging person around me I've found (even some nice strangers at the car wash) but I've yet to make a blog type presence about any of it.

I'm coming from a number of places with this particular subject and I'll try to do them justice and not go off and off and off at the same time but I'm not promising anything.

Ok - Place #1

I openly flash my membership card to Geekdom and frequently it would seem. Sometimes it comes out in Harry Potter debates at the Border's checkout counter and sometimes I get lit about Nova. This is a case of the latter.

Just the other night Mom and I tuned into this particular Nova that I found interesting and slightly disturbing, but not because of the people they were studying.

In rural Turkey there is a family of 21. 19 children born of two first cousins who married. 5 of these children haven't learned how to walk on two legs, they need their hands too. The other 14 are perfectly fine. Forgetting the fact that two cousins have married and multiplied *shudder* this family has drawn international attention from the Scientific Community thinking that these siblings (now adults from 19-24 years old) have DNA that could be evidential of an evolutionary ancestor that was quadrupedal.

There are three main things (scientifically speaking) that differentiate humans from the rest of the animal kingdom; bipedal locomotion, language, and brain size. There have been modern cases where defective genes have been isolated and identified with diseases pertaining to cases of language deficiency and abnormally small brain size, but none have ever surfaced regarding quadrupedal locomotion so the scientist types are all over this one.

There are a number of reasons they think this is a genetic thing. One of the many being the reason we can walk on two legs and not four is because of our fantastic sense of balance. This is because of our unusually large cerebellum. Brain scans of all of the siblings have revealed a very small one.

And they went on and on and on about all of these phenotypes that would paint a picture of a quadrupedal ancestor and they also presented a lot of evidence that in the case of the siblings that something else; bone structures etc. They had neurologists and psychologists come in and test these siblings and lets just say they aren't playing with a full deck. See, a typical strand of DNA has defective genes all over the place. The plus with how the system is set up is that we get 2 pairs of genes (one from mom and dad) and the best of the two are what is phenotypically manifested. Since two cousins married they would have similar copies of faulty DNA and therefore their kids would manifest the "mutated" genes more easily. Yadda yadda yadda -

Have I lost you yet? There is a point to all of this - I swear.

That should be on the channel 7 news - of course these siblings aren't playing with a full deck! Their gene pool is about as deep as left over bath water.

Out of all of the scientists they interviewed there was one (1!!) that made the suggestion that it was a matter of environment and not genetic disposition that had to do with this particular case. Hes an Anthropologist, not a geneticist mind you. He was the seemingly stuffy, white haired, Cambridge scholar that actually WENT to Turkey and met these siblings. He suggested, and I agree with him, that because this mother had these children so quickly (7 in 5 years) there wasn't time to help them progress from a baby bear crawl (which is very common) and the close siblings followed suit. Them living in the rural isolated place they do, it simply escalated with time.

He insisted that the environmental factors must carry just as much weight as genetic dispositions and never to underestimate the human spirit portion of Modern Humans. Genes are the scaffolding but they are not the building. I found his commentary so comforting and completely in line with my own, unschooled, theories. He said that if this case had happened in an area less rural these children would have been singled out and given therapy if they weren't walking by age 4 and by 5 or 6 they would have been perfectly bipedal.

Putting away the genetic pokers and pipettes, he and an empathetic Turkish psychologist, installed a few simple things at the house to help them strengthen their muscles and practice walking on two legs, even in their maturity (walkers, parallel bars etc) and they went back a year later and all of them were vastly improved.

These siblings aren't victims of their DNA, their parent's imprudence perhaps, but not their genome. I find it SOO frustrating how people are so apt to give in and give up who they are to a set of amino acids and looks for solutions in a syringe or a pill. Whats more is that the scientific community lets them. And since Society gives Science carte blanche for credibility more times than not, this mentality evolves into "fact" and sad prejudice.

This carte blanche is another thing - I read this other article that just amazed me but this post is mighty long so I guess I'll divvy this particular set of thoughts up I think.

Till next time then