Permit me, therefore, to make the case for perfectionism.
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Whenever I cross the Yarra, I hope that the overpass’s designers and builders were perfectionists. I don’t want them to have been hippy-trippy types forever telling each other “Hey, chill out, no sweat, you do you boo” when five millimetres’ discrepancy in a pylon, abutment, or cantilever will make the difference between (a) me reaching the Yarra’s Southbank side alive, as against (b) the Westgate Bridge tragedy of 1970.
Or consider planes. Air traffic controllers, who must remain endlessly vigilant for hypothetical runway disasters that often begin in a heartbeat, are exactly the individuals whom you and I want employed in Tullamarine’s tower. Air traffic controllers eternally “feeling good about themselves” are a greater aeronautic danger than any terrorist.
Similar principles periodically govern even the arts, those playpens for unconstrained ids. I’ve issued five CDs of organ music, and I gratefully credit my recording producer, Thomas Grubb. He’s the most meticulous perfectionist whom I’ve met.
Tom has, so to speak, X-ray ears. In the wildest orchestral climax, Tom could discern an incorrect momentary B-flat from the third clarinettist. He brings this focus to our recordings – one errant finger stray to a G-sharp rather than the required G-natural, and Tom will demand another take. And another. That’s how you make halfway decent classical CDs.
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Yet perhaps the ultimate form of desirable perfectionism in my own life comes with being a school crossing supervisor. My municipality pays me to be perfectionistic about safety.
The day when I let my guard down at the crossing, failing to perceive an oncoming car, truck, or motorcycle in time, is the day when a child’s life will be jeopardised. And perhaps (heaven forbid) lost. All because I took traffic dangers for granted that day. In short, all because I wasn’t acting like a perfectionist.
At the crossing, I have one overriding task: keeping pedestrians – particularly school students – safe. If a pedestrian is injured or, worse, killed through my doing that task imperfectly, I’ll retain no right to insist “Oh well, I tried, near enough is good enough.”
No. I salute publisher and philanthropist Kevin Weldon, who died last November. He called his 1995 bestseller Good Enough Is Never Good Enough.
If my years on this planet have taught me anything – a debatable proposition, admittedly – they are that for life’s crucial matters, those who won’t at least strive for perfection seldom attain even competence.
Achieving perfection is little likelier than achieving immortality. But if you don’t aim at it, you’ve got problems.
Dr Robert James Stove is an organist, historian, and school crossing supervisor whose next book, Kings, Queens and Fallen Monarchies is scheduled for release in November.
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