I shared this photograph on Flickr last week, and I really wanted to share a comment with you that was left by one of my Flickr contacts and good friend, Sunbeam Daisy:
I realise now that when I have photographed [daisies], I’ve looked for perfection and symmetry … but I love that this is somehow even more beautiful having lost a few petals.
This was such an insightful comment, and one that has left me mulling over the beauty of imperfection for quite a few days now. It strikes me that in our day and age we are constantly striving for perfection. We are continually bombarded with images that have been adjusted to portray some current conception of an ideal: a concept which is unattainable by its very definition.
The truth is that beauty can be found most profoundly through the presence of imperfection. It is the quirks, the flaws, the kinks that create beauty. It is the lost petals on a daisy. It is that stray cloud drifting across a setting sun. It is the fleck of brown in an otherwise clear blue iris. It is the over-bloomed rose just before it passes. It is the chicken-pox scar just above the left eyebrow. It is the fractured shell with its twisting chambers revealed.
This is where we find the unique, the special, the beautiful.
Why don’t you celebrate the imperfect today? Do more than forgive it for not being the perfect ideal – actively appreciate it for what it is.
Where do you find beauty in the imperfect? Do you agree that we are a society that is fixated on the perfect? How are you celebrating the beautifully imperfect?
Hi Amy
I agree..this is one of the reasons Im always paintings these ladders with bent rungs as I see these all the time when we are out on the boat, and somehow I love them because they are quirky and different. The photograph you took of the rusty gate was fantastic and that just proves the point! and it doesn’t have to be just imperfection in nature but in anything……………
In the Last Samurai the main hero, Katsumoto (Ken Watanabe) is looking for the perfect flower on the cherry tree. It is mentioned only once, when he talks with Nathan Algren.
At the end of the movie Katsumoto is dying, and the wind blows the flowers from a cherry tree by the battle field.
His last words are “Perfect. All of them, perfect”
Perfect is a subjective thing. And everything is perfect as is in a sense. I maybe not perfect – I certainly am imperfect I think -, still I am a perfect me, nothing can be more perfectly me.
)
I believe society has a lot to answer for as it makes almost ashamed of our imperfection but you are right they should be celebrated as they are what make us unique. I don’t want to be perfect as perfection comes a certain amount of complacency and conceit.
Did you notice not only are some of the petals missing but the bottom left petal is an irregular shape at the end.
This brought me back to one of my favorite films, The Last Samurai. In it, Katsumoto was searching for the perfect cherry blossom. What he comes to realize, and what he expressed with his dying breath, is that they are ALL perfect. What a beautiful lesson, and one that I wish we could learn a little sooner than many of us do.
Mrs. Chilis last blog post..A Reality I Wasn’t Aware I Was Honoring
When you make a patchwork quilt, there should be at least one mistake in it (I make more than that, LOL). It’s because nothing can be perfect (I think that the idea behind it was that only God’s creation can be perfect, but I’ll leave that comment to everyone’s consideration). So beauty does not always lie in the idea of perfection, something we seem to have inherited from the Greeks.
I once followed a course on therapeutic painting. We studied and drew and painted all the stages of the life of a plant, each one carrying its own richness. A sensitivity we need to develop, and which you brilliantly demonstrated here.
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What a lovely post Amy.I found it thru your post on Twitter.And I agree with the above thoughts on The Last Samurai-such a beautiful quote.
Thank you for this lovely post, Amy.
We – all of us – are imperfect.
Last night, the high school seniors with whom I have worked all year graduated. After the ceremony we were talking about their five-day class trip to a lovely Mediterranean resort where they travelled, for the first time, without any teacher-chaperones or parents. When I asked them how it went, one student said that there was a lot of conflict for the first couple of days. Another girl commented, “I love conflict. I love that we are all so different and that we disagreed and got upset… and then we figured out how to make it work. And it worked!”
Although I don’t yet love conflict, I love her answer because it speaks to this issue of how gloriously imperfect we all are and how many of us are striving each day to learn how to really love our imperfections and those of the people around us.
Amy, I just love your posts about finding beauty in the world around you. They have helped me ever to much! I’m becoming much more relaxed, calm, and appreciative of the beauty around me. Thank you!
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I rejoice in the beauty of the imperfect in everything that is fashioned by the human hand – pots, books, knitted sweaters etc However having read quite a lot about the Japanese aesthetic of wabi-sabi, I also appreciate the beauty in the impermanent and the incomplete. Thanks for the attention to detail in your photos and for reminding me to look for beauty everywhere.
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Amy, the photo and the insight took my breath away. We are far too fixated on perfection. We touch up, laser, and alter to cover our perceived blemishes. In our society we celebrate the unnatural. I found this photograph a beautiful representation of life itself. Over time we all lose a few petals but it adds rather than detracts from our beauty. As we lose the petals we become more ourselves as we have been tested and tried by life itself. Our remaining petals seem to stand stronger, prouder with the inner knowledge that we have earned what is left and we are proud to remain standing tall in the garden of life. Thank you Amy for your thoughtful, intelligent insight and precious reminder to celebrate true beauty.
Karen xx
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Amy I love that you have taken a simple comment by me and made it into such a wonderfully profound post!
I am inspired by you daily to look deeper into life, to look closer at the world around me, to look for the beauty that lies in simple things, things we take for granted, things often viewed as imperfect.
Thank you for the link to your other, equally thought-provoking post, too … the way society (particluarly the media) puts so much pressure on girls is frightening and increasingly tragic.
It made me smile to see you have included a “fleck of brown in an otherwise clear blue iris” in your list of beautiful imperfections … my youngest daughter has just such a fleck in her eye!
A Yen for Paper, I have heard of wabi-sabi but knew nothing other than it’s name … now inspired to learn some more, thank you!
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Awesome. I’m in a complete non-perfectionist mode lately. I like the idea that we can not only accept imperfections, but celebrate them.
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I completely agree, Morag – imperfection can be beautiful in the man-made just as poignantly as it can in nature.
I am clearly going to have to get myself a copy of that film, Roland! Thank you so much for bringing it to my attention and linking it so beautifully to the post
It’s a worrying social trend, isn’t it, Liss, to remain so fixated on some impossible idea of perfection? One which I’m fairly certain could never leave to contentment, confidence or genuine happiness.
I think being aware of it, Mrschili, and trying to pass it on to our children through our own example is one of the most important gifts we can give them.
‘A sensitivity we need to develop’ – couldn’t agree more, Nadine
So glad you found me here, Mandy! Thank you so much for taking the time to leave a comment – please do come again
That was a great response, Monna. Like you I do not love conflict, but I so admire the way your student was able to turn it into something so positive!
Oh, I’m so glad, Allison! That makes what I’m doing here feel so worth while
I’m not actually all that familiar with Wabi Sabi, A Yen For Paper, so I was really pleased to see your post on the subject. Fits perfectly!
Karen, thank you for this extremely thoughtful comment, which, as always, is so beautifully written
Thanks so much for leaving your inspiring comment in the first place, Dianne!
Yes, I’m most definitely up for celebrating imperfections, Sara