The Beauty of Imperfection

I once had a boss who was an expatriate from the UK. When his contract came to an end and he had to leave Kenya, he was depressed. I enquired as to why he was sad and yet he was going back to a country where everything worked perfectly. His response amazed me. “I hate the way everything back home works perfectly. Garbage is collected promptly at the same time on the same day every week without fail. The roads are in perfect condition but if you over speed even once, you get a ticket and your record is indelible,” he retorted. It took the depression of an expatriate for me to be able to look at the problems of our country as blessings.

Thorn in the Flesh

The bible scholars among us can remember the story of Paul when he asked God to remove a thorn from his side. God’s response was unusual because he declined to remove the undefined thorn from his faithful servant. Instead, he told Paul that it would remain in place to remind him that God’s Grace would be sufficient.

Hand Made Clothes

I am reliably informed that there are suits that cost as much as a small car. I am also equally reliably informed that these suits are not sewn by machine. They are cut and stitched entirely by hand. Since it takes very experienced tailors tens of hours to complete a single suit, these suits don’t come cheap. The who’s who in the world of entertainment, business, and politics were these suits. On enquiring why these clothes are more popular than machine-made ones among the affluent, I was told it was because the stitches on machine ones are too perfect and therefore, not beautiful.

Music

I once operated a music studio in Kisumu. I had invested in a Yamaha keyboard but all the youth who came to record there, preferred to use software installed on the computer to produce all the instruments. The software I used then was fruity loops through which you could simulate any instrument and generate perfect notes. I donated the keyboard to my church because nobody used it. After some time, I started getting some benga artistes to record in my studio. Benga is a style of music that is popular in the Kenyan lakeside town and is usually played live in clubs.

Benga musicians cannot accept to use computer-generated instruments. Whenever they came to my studio, they brought their own instruments and players and their music was simply beautiful. There is something special about music produced naturally by people. I understand that it is the imperfect notes that humans are bound to produce that makes natural music so special.

Litigation
Litigation is a big industry employing many people who include lawyers, judges, court clerks, probation officers, and prison warders. The whole industry is founded on the imperfection of people and their inability to comply with the law. I enjoy watching movies and among my favourite genres are court room dramas. It is interesting to watch how people get themselves out of precarious situations in law. I can’t imagine how life would be if nobody broke the law. It is one of the many instances where imperfection gives rise to beauty.

Making Up after Breaking Up

I once heard of a pastor who, when conducting premarital counselling on couples, would ask them if they had ever had a major disagreement. If they had not, he would send them away and tell them to come back when they had had at least one fight. He was basing his teaching on research which shows that people in a relationship become closer when they make up after a fight. Although the pastor’s method was a bit unorthodox, it is true that people who never fight end up in a relatively boring relationship. There is nothing that makes people fonder of each other than a make-up after a break-up.

Management

I aspire to be in management of a very big organisation in future. One thing I have to contend with however, is that managers are in place to deal mainly with problems. If an organisation had no problems and everybody did what they were supposed to do promptly, there would be little or no need for managers. Management is another industry, like law, that thrives on imperfection.

There you have it my fellow Laymen. Go out and live your imperfectly beautiful lives!