Saturday, April 11, 2015

Perfection or Not



One of the joys of retirement is that one can do things just for fun. Top performance is not necessary. One is no longer acting to please the world but rather oneself. To be sure, one can do a volunteer job after retirement that calls for competence and responsibility, and very satisfying it is too. One begins to feel, however, that part-time performance is quite enough. One wants to spend time pursuing a hobby, developing a new interest or just enjoying an activity during what used to be working hours.

I knew that writing would continue to be a vital area of my life after retirement, but according to my own schedule; deadlines were out. I also had a stimulating volunteer job in which I learned many skills in an entirely new area. When it came time to leave it, I wanted to continue learning new skills but increasingly just wanted to have a good time. My puritanical background balked at this, but it was impossible to ignore. So in addition to taking painting lessons – new skills! – I decided to take a dance class.

Perhaps I was harking back to my childhood, when I desperately
wanted to join a ballet class, but dancing was frowned upon by my parents as a waste of time and money. I used to accompany a friend to ballet, where I sat crying in the back of the room. At my present age, ballet was out of course, but ballroom dancing seemed a possibility. To be sure, I have never been able to follow a partner, but I would be joining an Everdance class, in which each person is on his or her own, all in a line or in a circle.

Everyone else had been in the class for some time, so I was able to look at my first class hour as stumbling about because I knew less than they did. By the second week, however, it was clear that I was just terrible at this activity, possessing neither the grace nor the physical acumen to pick up the new steps so beautifully demonstrated by the teacher. I have not even two left feet; two or maybe more left hooves is more like it. Everything moved too fast as well. I was always lagging behind. Disciplining the hooves was not working.

So did I put it down to experience and leave the class? No way! I haven’t had so much fun in ages. Just watching the teacher, a fiery woman of Spanish background, was a joy. My relative success with the waltz helped, but it was the very imperfectly performed salsa and the cha cha that made me feel zingy.

A few days into the course I regaled a friend with a tale of this experience. A perfectionist, she just shook her head. No way could she take such a course and not perform perfectly. As this is a woman of world renown in her professional field, one would think she would not need perfection in a fun activity as well. Oh yes, it would be necessary.

I am well aware that it is perfectionists who produce most of the
excellent work done in the world. But does this have to carry over into fun activities as well? Yes, they tell me, it does. How exhausting! And I feel for their inability to celebrate the basic imperfection of mankind. Imperfection is not always something to moan about; sometimes it is something to appreciate. As in my dance class.

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