One of my favorite stories of a political figure is of Jimmy Carter, who said, yes, I’ve sinned.
I’ve looked on a lot of women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times. This is something that God recognizes I will do–and I have done it–and God forgives me for it.
We know no one is perfect–we certainly aren’t–but we insist on believing others are. Our heroes must be, at all costs. Columbus, for example, who bumped into the New World by an accident of math, couldn’t possibly have been a brutal, ravening slaver. It would not do to admit that the emperor has no clothes or that the king has feet of clay.
After all, he’s just a man. — T. Wynette
Sherry Turkle spends a balanced chapter on the subject in Alone Together, but I’ve since run across a number of snide remarks bemoaning the cultivation of an image of perfection on Instagram or of editing one’s online personality on Facebook, at once more plastic and more permanent. This seems such an ungenerous assessment of how we use those tools, unlike Pinterest which is obviously solely aspirational, engendered perhaps by our American obsession with marketing our personal brand illusion. Why not see these, of necessity cropped, images as snapshot of beauty in the world?
Beauty’s where you find it. — Madonna
At times the entire project of the American Dream seems collapsed to nothing more than envy and covetousness, underlaid by a deep sense of unease. That’s more motivation than one can reasonably extract from the purchase of a large home with a large mortgage and a large garage filled with large cars. It’s exposed more in the frantic scurrying for a place in the Right kindergarten or avoidance of the Wrong school district, anxiety about getting into the Best college or joining the Prominent firm, as each of these choices appears to open or close future opportunity: My children won’t have a perfect life if I eat Frankenberries while I’m pregnant, if I’m not a Tiger Mom, if I am a Tiger Mom. We simply must do the one single right thing, but doubt what it is. The courage of our convictions is lost in the crowd.
There can be only one king of the hill. That’s how superlatives work. There’s only one greatest of all time. But these are terms for comparison within a group: relative positioning, not absolute. The argument over who is the best is absurd without context. Nevertheless, the struggle for position in this tribe of great apes matters. Because shit rolls downhill, one must fight for one of the few limited spots closer to the top of the shit heap. The ape on the top of the heap can’t show weakness.
Sports model society, to a degree. Not all the parents are LaVar Ball, nor do all sporting enterprises target the anxieties of parents, but a number are, and a number do, leading to the impression that one needs to specialize early, that one just has to join the elite academy team at age 8 in order to play in college at 18, if one harbors any dream of playing professionally. Have to be ready when those scouts come looking for the next 13 year-old star. Never mind that puberty happens. One could also move to Argentina and acquire a growth hormone deficiency in hopes of trying out for Barcelona. Not that either method works: Sales doesn’t like statistics that get in the way of money.
What happens to joy? What place has fun?
What if we looked at life, and particularly parenting, as an unfolding practice instead of something we have to perfect on our first attempt? What if we could make mistakes in public? What if we could admit fallibility? What if we could experiment? Does anyone have all the answers? Has no one seen nothing new? Is everything the same day-to-day? Why is it so hard to respect how things are and, at the same time, allow the possibility of improvement? What if curiosity and compassion were stronger than fear?
What if we said yes?
“Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” [Luke 18:16–17 (ESV)]