Why Can Humans Not Be Perfect?

By: I. Tamagusuku 

“Perfect people aren’t real, and real people aren’t perfect”, at some point of our lives we all hear a phrase like this one, and it makes us wonder, why could we humans never be perfect? 

Firstly, the concept of perfection can vary as time passes: the Greeks did not have the same definition of perfection as we do now, through time it will change as we evolve. However, in all those ages we always had this urge to be perfect and achieve that concept of perfection we invented.  

Moreover, biologically humans are imperfect, we cannot do everything with our bodies, for example we have blind spots in our vision, we cannot even see all the different colours there are out there, we cannot hear certain sounds that are made, we are incapable of doing those things. Furthermore, humans have genetical mutations that made us imperfect, everyone is different from the other, no one can do everything there is out there to do. 

Brains are also one of our limitations, as our mind does short cut, quick judgments, and cognitive bias, making us interpret things wrong, because of emotions, energy saving, survival instincts we inherited through evolution, and pattern recognition. Our brains do that to us because they are a part of our body they learn from what they saw, and recognise things we lived, therefore, they learn through our experiences that are not always the perfect ones, not all humans have the same experiences, some have more opportunities to learn than others, and that changes our way of thinking and reacting, when exposed to the same situation.  

Ultimately, perfection is not achievable for any human, however our imperfection is what makes us learn and grow, without it we would not have any space to grow, to re-think, to make mistakes, and to be essentially human. In Japanese there is a concept for known as Wabi Sabi, it refers to the beauty in the imperfection, and the value attached to it. To be imperfect is what motivates us to be better, and to learn more, as we always evolve with the possibility to make things in the wrong way, and change it, because we will never be perfect.