One thing that has annoyed me for ages is when a person says something like, “Life is not supposed to be like this!” or “There has to be something better!” or similar statements. I believe such statements are not only a sign of immaturity and wishful thinking, but completely illogical. I propose the following conclusion:
Conclusion: No one can state that the life which they are living is not a perfect one, because nobody has the ability to conceive the concept of a perfect life.
I’m going to wax philosophical for awhile about this, so if you’re not into philosophy, you’ll want to skip on to the next entry, where I’ll probably berate someone for being a moron or similar.
I propose to prove these ideas with the following arguments:
Theorem 1: The concept of perfection, such as we hold within our minds, does not reflect any state in real life in which that corresponding concept can actually exist due to the nature of objects.
This theorem states that any concept that we hold within our minds as being “perfect” is not really a possibility within the real world due to the nature of objects. Imagine, if you will, a perfect, wooden chair. Got it in your mind? Not too tough, I imagine. A back, a seat, 4 legs…details are left up to the individual whim. The point is that you can conceive of a perfect chair within your mind. Good job.
Now, tell me, where have you ever seen a perfect chair?
Hrm?
What? You never have? But you’ve just conceived of one — surely there must BE one somewhere?
Ok, no, there isn’t. Perfect chairs simply do not exist. For those of you who might have answered ‘yes’ to that question, you’re wrong. There’s always something “wrong” with a chair — a drop of glue out of place, a width of a spoke a bit too much, a small crack in the wood, the varnish not thick enough in one area, etc. High-price, high-quality chairs are certainly <i>more</i> perfect than Wal-mart chairs, but they’re still not completely the same as your conception of what a perfect chair would entail.
So if the perfect chair doesn’t actually exist anywhere, who is to say that the perfect chair DOES really exist but our conception of what a “perfect” chair is flawed? I mean simply this: What if the definition of a perfect chair is one that is built well but contains small flaws in it? In other words, the conception of what we think is “perfect” is actually the chair that you have sitting in your dining room. We have perfection already — it’s just that our <i>concept</i> of what is perfect is off.
One can then apply this idea of a flawed perspective to all situations involving perfect items or concepts. The perfect house. The perfect job. The perfect kitty cat.
Where do our flawed perceptions come from, then? Well, simply we are taught and told that flaws in an object are not supposed to be there — a concept exists within the people before us that, although you might see a chair with a blob of varnish on a spoke, that spoke really should be like the others that do not have a blob on them. Thus, they inform others of this fact. “Some thing’s not the same, clearly it’s wrong.”
Yet, if no concept of a perfect chair can ever be reality, is this a correct perception to have?
Some would say that yes, this perception is valid, because it furthers a struggle to obtain a better manifestation of that concept. Chair makers are driven to produce better chairs because they have a concept of a perfect chair within their minds. The flaws speak to them, telling them where they can improve upon their original production.
This is all fine and good — when you have a clear perception of what a perfect chair is like. But it becomes problematic when one starts considering something like a, “perfect life”. The problem is that nobody really has a good idea of what a life without flaws is like, or if there is one, which things are considered “flaws” and which are not. For many, being rich and famous isn’t the ideal life, nor is it living in the middle of Cancun. Each person has a conception of what would be their ideal life, and oftentimes, they don’t really know what that would be, either.
Which brings me to my next theorem:
Theorem 2: Complex concepts can not be conceived of in a state of perfection due to the fact that their complexity requires more experience and/or knowledge that one person can accumulate within a lifetime.
A person’s life has a lot of parts to it — family, friends, job, living arrangements, pets, relationships, ups, downs…the complexity rises quickly once you start to really detail out all of the individual aspects. This intricacy makes it impossible for any of us to examine each individual point in our lives and thoroughly research it for the best possible situation.
The fact is, our lives are too short and our resources are limited. If we were each given all the time necessary to research every individual aspect, we might be able to make a dent in finding the “perfect” situation for each. For instance, if you had the time, you could try out all sorts of jobs — farmer, business, sales, research, teaching — and decide which one was perfect for you. This would cover a broad aspect only, of course; once you decided on the meta profession, then you have to narrow it down: bean farmer, corn farmer, cotton farmer; after that comes where to do it, what land, equipment, planning, etc….it all gets very complex, very quickly. And that’s just for employment — imagine trying to detail out your perfect relationship!
In fantasy fiction, the Elves are usually credited with being the wisest because they are either immortal or at least very long-lived. I suspect being wise comes with the time to gain the wisdom, and humans have a finite period in which to gain this wisdom. Also, we have a lot of other demands on our time — working, family, playing — we can’t all be philosophers under a tree every day.
In the end, we simply cannot research a perfect life. Therefore, we cannot hope to ever obtain a perfect life, only to better the one we are within. But, that being said — perhaps we ARE living a perfect life. Maybe not. But how would you know without the research, and you don’t have the time for it! 
Therefore, it is impossible for anyone to say that their life isn’t perfect and to be upset about it.
Why all this Crap is Important
I’m getting pretty tired of people going around and saying that they are upset because their life isn’t perfect or is bad or whatever. The fact is, we don’t know that it isn’t perfect, and we don’t know that it can be improved, either. Oftentimes, improvement in one area results in detriment to another, and we end up back at the same point we started at.
Rather, we would all do better in simply accepting what we have, deciding what we need to work on within reason, and work with what we have. Climbing a ladder that doesn’t go anywhere is fruitless; deciding that climbing at all is a waste, equally so. We must strike the balance between struggling towards something “better” and apathy so that our efforts aren’t wasted.
