Perfection

I read a story yesterday about a guy. Now, for so many reasons, I won’t repeat the story word for word, but I will get the gist of the story, which led, not to a revelation for me, although maybe it should.

It was a story about a guy, as I mentioned, who decided to find the perfect partner. So, he searched the world for a woman he thought would be perfect for him. He met a great woman, and she had so many good qualities that he thought maybe she could be the one. Unfortunately, she didn’t share his love of reading, so he had to move on.

In another town, he met another woman. She was smart, attractive, funny, and loved to read, but she wasn’t very athletic. Our young searcher was a runner, and he wanted someone to accompany him, so he passed.

In town after town, he searched, coming up with women who were almost perfect but not perfect. As he was about to give up, he met a woman who ticked every box on his list. She was absolutely perfect so he asked her to marry him, sadly she declined as she was looking for the perfect man.

Now, I’m sure almost everyone could learn something from this story, but what happened to me was a little different. I read that story in a café on a Sunday afternoon. About an hour later, I was at a different cafe in a different town to play an open mic. It was almost time for me to play. My guitar was tuned, and I had my playlist ready. I was going to play one song I had just written that morning and a few songs I almost never play in public, as I am still thinking about them. The singer before me gave a little intro about her final song, and I thought, “Of course, the story. I have to write a song that has elements of the story I read that morning into a new song.

That is the beauty of creativity, or perhaps my lack thereof. I had read a story about the dangers of seeking perfection in a text about mindfulness, I had my guitar in hand, and someone mentioned a breakup. All of those elements had to come together in order for me to think about writing a new song. Now, it may take me a while to write it, but I did jot down some notes. When I finish it, I’ll have to post a video of it here.

And I hope you see all the chaos going on around you and put it into some sort of order and share it with the world.