The Beauty of the Incomplete

In this world, we generally value things by their level of refinement. The obvious example would be a perfectly cut diamond versus the non-proverbial "diamond in the rough". The value lies in the beauty which lies in the pure perfection. In this trivial example, it is probably fair to say the market has decent taste. Most things are not not this cut out, this crystalline and definitely not this simple.

There is beauty in a lot of things. As we saw, there is beauty is perfection, but there is also beauty in simplicity, order, completeness, conformity and symmetry. But aren't all those just perfection hidden in other shapes and forms? Are there perhaps other forms of beauty that does not rely on perfecting anything? The reason this question is important to ask is because the beauty of perfection is, while alluring, also a dangerous thing. We can add "purity" to the above list of words and the pattern emerges a bit more. The human need for these things can lead to the most horrible things, all in the name of beauty in perfection.

Sure, perfection can be a great motivator to strive for all kinds of great things and should be use as such, but not without afterthought and the wisdom needed to handle that kind of power. I am not sure we can trust ourselves, and history suggest we indeed should doubt our abilities here.

So what is a "better beauty" to pursue? At risk of sounding like a naïve idiot who believes on unicorns, Santa Claus and that Google is still trying not be evil (I don't), I am about to propose a number of less dangerous but nonetheless at least as beautiful things to admire and reach for.

(obviously I humbly realize that none of this is unique in any way but they are still thoughts I think)

Freedom

Let's start with the most obvious one. Freedom is not prefect, is is chaos, but it is imperfection with value and it is indeed beautiful. Which kind of freedom, you ask? Pretty much all of them that does not have effects on others. That is why freedom can never be absolute, can never be "perfect" in any sense. It has to be an entangled web of ever-changing truths which we will have to constantly renegotiate and re-understand. That is the beauty of it.

Brokenness

When things are broken is when we really feel. The imperfection of being broken is a great part of being human. We seem to need to fix things, and maybe it is because we actually think that the wholeness is the goal. The crux of the matter is, we are never meant to get to that point, because if we would, there would be no meaning to anything anymore. Therefore I argue that the real beauty lies in the state of brokenness, which lends itself to our needs to fix things, and thereby gives us meaning in our life. We should not look for beauty in what we cannot have, but in what we can already see.

Incompleteness

They say that math is beautiful because it is this perfect system where things add up and come together perfectly. As soon as you add physics or even worse, chemistry, the ugliness of reality comes and smashed the beauty to pieces like a sledgehammer. As we know, since a hundred years back or so, all formal systems of sufficient complexity, including what we refer to as math, are "incomplete". Maybe it could be argued that math is so beautiful just because it is incomplete but nevertheless to immensely useful? Anyway that is not really the point, rather that things can be very beautiful even when they are not complete, perhaps even because their completeness is a pipe dream, or maybe reachable but not in itself desirable. When a jigsaw is completed it stops being a jigsaw and starts being a picture. It was probably most beautiful and fulfilling somewhere on the road to completion, when its jigsawness was more prevalent, and with it, its meaning.

Conclusion

Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder, as they say, and it can be debated on what level of autonomy the beholder even exists regarding this topic. Let's at least say we can control where we look for beauty. I want to look for it in fuzziness of freedom, in the meaningfulness of brokenness and incompleteness and not in the absolute realms of perfection, objectiveness and purity. With that I do not aim for brokenness, I do not see more beauty in more brokenness or less completeness. The beauty lies in the balance of not resting at any extreme, but remaining at the best spot even if it is very difficult to do so. It is not a natural point of rest. Staying there is simply an amazing act of beauty.