Tattered Garments

People often ask me "Why do you keep using old, defective, damaged garments when you can just buy new ones?", and my answer is always "Because they are not defects, but inherent parts of the nature of the garment. Our 'defects' are a part of ourselves, they are attributes that form who we are at this particular moment".

Just as you, me, and every single human we encounter in our ephemeral lifespan, the mistakes, shortcomings, and scars—whether physical or psychological—are part of us, they were necessary in order to be who we are today, they ought to be included in one's development's narrative just as aptitudes, accomplishments, and creations are. They are as crucial as learning, experimenting, and creating when it comes to our development, to our creations, to our behavior, to our actions and our goals. Without them, the ideas, projects, and approaches that we take wouldn't have been materialized in the way they were when they became functional, tangible, real. Thereby, in my opinion, such mistakes, "defects", and "malfunctions" ought to be as praised as the achievements and accuracies are.

Such defects and imperfections derive from unsuccessful approaches, erroneous actions, or any other instance where one was—unbeknownst to oneself at the moment—mistaken about the reasoning behind an action, which led to a permanent mark in oneself. Such marks might be psychological, physical, emotional, professional, creative, or any other adjective alluding to a human attribute of the self. There are times where such defects are labeled as such due to their "ugly" (ugliness is subjective, which is why the quotations), imperfect, or malfunctioning nature, however, such discrepancy conveys the idea that we as humans, are not perfect. We are not deities, computers, or mathematics to be always accurate, we like to think we are, but we constantly keep reminding ourselves that we are not via mere actions, we are humanly imperfect, innately incorrect, therefore, always artistically different from the expected idealized standards. Instead of viewing this fact as a flaw or something that must be corrected, one should recognize and accept that imperfections are an inherent part of human nature; they are inevitable and should not be grounds for reprimand.

Why is this the case though? Why can't we always be right? Avoid mistakes? Become "perfect"? Because in order to do so, one would need to know everything, every single aspect, perspective, attribute, and mechanism of every single phenomena and expertise, which is impossible as we are limited by time, neurobiological and cognitive factors, and external priorities that—sometimes against our will—compel us to devote time to them as they are vital for our survival, as well as that of our inner circle of fellow humans. Furthermore, the number of human expertises isn't immutable, we as humans tend to create and dismiss expertises as we evolve intellectually, and our environment keeps the pace along with such evolution. Every expertise is not used per se, we never use an expertise in its entirety, but just attribute of the expertise, we use the expertise hybridly, for example: let's say that you plan on restoring a part of your house by painting and adding a few frames, you don't use the entirety of mathematical knowledge to estimate the cost of the restoration and acquire the measurements of the frame, the entirety of architectural knowledge to know how the restoration will come out, nor the entirety of carpentry and painting knowledge to apply such embellishment; you use only a few parts of the expertise to attain your desired outcome. Besides, within the list of human artistic instances, defects rank at the top of such lists. They are one of the best representations of the word "Human". Perhaps, I would describe a defect as a synonym of Art. Why is that the case? In order to answer that question, I would need to dwell on the definition of Art, which requires a couple of books to describe, and even such books would lack the definitive requirements to be labeled as "precise" due to the complexity of such a word's definition. But here's my shot:

Art is fueled by "mistakes". Why? Because Art, innately and by its very nature, is innovative, new, idiosyncratic, unprecedented, just as mistakes are. Think about this: "Imperfect" according to whom? To what? In order to call something imperfect, there has to be another reference that is "perfect", one cannot label something as imperfect without such reference. Which leads me to my next point: when people call things imperfections, this perfect reference they evoke in their mind is subjective, thereby unique to them, created by their idiosyncratic imagination, by their own experiences and descriptions that make such thing imperfect, therefore, wouldn't that make their "perfect" reference imperfect as well? If it is because of beauty, the argument is instantly demolished as beauty is innately subjective, what you find beautiful is similar, but inevitably different to what I find beautiful, and that is if you are a human living and raised in the Western Anglosphere, but ask a person from rural Algeria, impoverished Nepal, or urban Hungary, such definition will deviate even more from yours and mine. What's even more interesting; the reference they evoke in their mind is not only subjective to their person and peoplehood, but also ephemeral, as the reference will continuously change as they think about it. Try it yourself, think of a tree. Wait 10 seconds. Think of a tree once again. Was the first image of a tree you evoked the same as the second one after 10 seconds? Something in it changed, or perhaps if you did the exercise right, you couldn't stop thinking about the tree and changed its morphology and appearance amidst the 10 seconds. See what I mean?

Nothing is perfect, nor imperfect, it just is.