Type in ‘perfect
Christmas gift’ in a search engine and see what happens. I got 397,000,000 results…
I also saw a dozen or so ads on the way in to London
all claiming to be ‘the perfect gift’. These included the BBC’s Olympic
Ceremony DVD (really? the perfect gift?) who’d want to sit through 7 hours+ of
people standing around waving flags? And what then, if bought, would I buy next
year? Surely I have topped out there!
Made me think that perfect is an overused word. Perfect
should be used for the ‘one thing’ that is deserving of the title. With so much
perfection on offer, I now can’t distinguish between the good stuff and the not
so good – let alone the ‘perfect’.
Perfect is one of those words that have lost its
meaning; right up there with professional, rigorous and dependable.
I’ve mentioned this before but on this occasion, my
thoughts aren’t about focusing on the ‘perfect’ and asking what makes it so,
but on the other material that sets up the context and conditions for perfect
to exist.
When it comes to matters of design, transfer,
innovation, creative thinking and adult learning – all inheriting rules and
disciplines – there is a great deal of material to consider before anything can
be said to be perfect.
My advice – ignore perfect. It’s a myth.
Instead, embrace different, better, unusual, anti, shocking,
hyper, stimulating or real.
Miles Davis famously spoke of playing the notes that
weren’t there. I think there’s a great deal of wisdom in that thinking. If
perfect is now available in 390+million forms at Christmas, there must be a
great deal of stuff were missing…
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