“What do you see?” they ask. I try to answer in the shortest way possible, without inviting more questions. Maybe only people who actually care will ask them anyway. The rest just want something simple to move the conversation along. It is not annoying. It just feels empty.
Living in a world full of imperfection feels like a kind of torture. Small flaws turn into distractions, and those distractions stop me from getting anything done. Life seems to revolve around outcomes. But the moment I notice something that could have been better, everything around it starts to feel the same. I try to fix it, but most of the time, nothing was asking to be fixed. It feels like the problem is mine. This constant urge to correct things stays with me, like something I cannot turn off.
After a while, I start to think this is just something I have to live with. But then, what does that even mean? If it is a condition, is there supposed to be a cure? It does not feel like there is one. The only way forward seems to be acceptance, accepting that nothing is ever fully right, that people are not either. And then the question comes back again, does perfection even exist?
Sometimes I think I have seen it. Very briefly. It never lasts. Maybe it is not supposed to. Maybe it only exists for a moment, like a snapshot. Everything keeps moving, and once it moves, whatever felt complete is gone. So maybe perfection is just something that appears once in a while, just enough to make everything feel whole for a second. Or maybe it is only whole because of everything around it. Or maybe it just is, on its own, without needing anything else.
To keep going, I feel like I have to ignore the flaws, or at least try to. But my mind does not stay quiet. It fills up with thoughts, possibilities, things that feel wrong. Almost everything feels slightly off. And then, once in a while, something interrupts that. Something that slows everything down. In that moment, it feels complete. It does not need any explanation or extension. It just exists as it is.
But the moment I notice it, it starts to feel strange. Almost unfamiliar. I look at it more closely, try to understand it, and then it changes. It is no longer the same. And I am not the same either. So I end up wondering what I actually saw, or if it was ever what I thought it was.
It feels like something shifts the moment I become aware of it. That awareness pulls me out of everything else, but at the same time, I just know I cannot have that moment again. Losing it might have been easier than having experienced it at all. Because now, anything that even slightly reminds me of it brings me back to that exact point in time, when things felt untouched, before I started questioning them.
If I think about what is ahead, it is probably just more of these moments. Or maybe just the memory of them, whether they were real or not.