Perfection

I am a perfectionist. Those of you who know me may not really realize it. I am not necessarily all that great or thorough in many of the things I do. Therefore I will give my personal insights on perfectionism.

I think that perfectionism is almost like a disease. I suppose it would be more of a mental ailment. When strictly harnessed and reined in it can be a very useful tool. When uncontrolled it can be a destructive monster.

There are, in my opinion, three categories of perfectionist. The first is the one who is totally driven by a compulsion to be as absolutely perfect at something as is possible. Not necessarily as is humanly possible, but as is possible. These are the people who are so wrapped up in the pursuit of perfection in whatever area they feel the compulsion that they neglect the other aspects of their life. They endlessly pursue learning or fitness or the perfect body, often to the detriment of family or work or even health. These people are incredibly successful in very specific aspects of their lives, but they are discontent in their successes. Since perfection is ultimately unattainable they fail. Their drive for perfection destroys them.

There is a second category of people who have a drive for perfection who are able use that drive to progress and grow and attain their goals. They are able to use their desire to attain perfection to the degree that they are extremely successful in what they do. At the same time they are able to put things into a more healthy perspective than the first group, and therefore they have healthier relationships and happier lives. These types of perfectionists are just as driven as the first group, but they are able to, if not accept limits, at least acknowledge them.

I fit into the third category. It is a category of people who are compelled to be perfect in everything they do, but they fear that they will fail in any pursuit they might attempt so they don't try. Their fear of failure is greater than their need to excel. They are often successful to a degree, but they fall far short of their. Where those in the first group of perfectionists eventually burn out, those in the last group atrophy.

Thus I am a perfectionist. I could spend a great deal of time listing the things that I have not done or attempted in my life because I fear I will not succeed. I don't really think I can appropriately it as a fear of failure so much a fear of not excelling. For people like me it is not enough to be good, or okay, or adequate. We have to be great, and the possibly of not attaining greatness is staggering.

It is essentially a case of ego. The problem is, I don't know how to fix the situation. I really feel a compulsion to excel. An example is that I always wanted to be a writer. I can't write though. I do not want to write something mediocre. I don't even want to write something good. It always has to be great. I get totally overwhelmed by all the details inherent in trying to create something perfect that I don't even know where to start. Writing is an exercise. In order to become a strong writer one must write and write and write and rewrite and write some more until there is an outline of something good, and then write some more. My struggle is that every word must be perfect the first time. Each sentence strong. My ego will not let me write something that is not the best, but I realize that is not likely possible, so I do not write.

Pathetic, I know. But how does one go about facilitating a complete mental transformation? How does one overcome such a fundamental personality flaw.

A line...

So I guess I need to start out by admitting the fact that my last posting "A seed..." probably seemed both arrogant and naive. Arrogant because I realize there are a lot of people intellectually superior to myself (some of whom are reading this) who are able to reconcile their faith with their learning. The naivete in that I am far from the first person to question or to struggle with the limited nature of his or her understanding of things.

I do struggle though. I struggle with the simple things. The things you are supposed to take for granted. It seems we live in a world where we are constantly looking for limits. We are constantly drawing lines in the sand. My struggles are to some degree due to the fact that I have tried to avoid limits (intellectually at least) and to abstain from drawing lines. I am constantly trying to understand things from as many perspectives as possible. Essentially I do not want my own preconceived notions or attitudes to influence my perceptions or understandings of various situations or issues.

I am beginning to realize that there are some lies that must be drawn. There are some assumptions that are crucial to faith, of any type. Those assumptions are lines that cannot be crossed. The assumption that Joseph Smith was a prophet, he translated the Book of Mormon, and he was the instrument of the restoration of the priesthood and Christ's church on Earth, the fact that there are certain necessary saving ordinances that are attainable only through that priesthood, and the acceptance of Jesus Christ as the Son of God, the promised Messiah, and Savior of the world. There are a lot of things that I can easily dismiss as irrelevant because I so not really see a relevance to my personal salvation (such as the role of dinosaurs in God's plan). There are areas that are more difficult for me. I struggle for example with the literalness of scripture. I struggle with the role of personal revelation. I struggle with the disconnect between the Gospel and the Culture.

Basically most of the stuff that bugs me is immaterial and petty. A lot of it does not matter. I guess to me it comes down to a conscious decision on my part to accept the things that I have to accept Take the givens. It has worked out for me so far. I have a good life and I have been blessed. I guess it comes down to the whole faith thing.

I do not know if I really see the spiritual fruits of my faith. However, the fruits of the life I have lived due to my efforts to live by my faith (albeit imperfectly) are very tangible and they are great.

I guess in my case it comes down to simple faith (which for me is far from simple). I don't know if I will ever find answers. I don't know if God will ever give them to me.

So I'm back to the seed...

A seed...

Well,

I haven't posted for a while. I have been contemplating many things and I have balked at trying to broach the topics that interest or concern me at this point in my life. I struggle with my inadequacy at expressing myself. Anyway. I figured I would give it a shot.

First off, some housekeeping type business. I have opened my blog. Mainly because I am no longer in Afghanistan and therefore unlikely to accidentally let something slip that could compromise "operational security" (although it is not my intent to focus on military type issues or expound on my own personal military experiences, though they have to a great degree been critical to the formation of my current concept of self). Also, I have occasionally feared that some of my thoughts could possibly be viewed as being overly politically opinionated for a member of the military (although I have never ever ever intended to speak as a military person). So if anybody is actually reading this, and feels that someone he or she knows might be interested in a certain topic or posting or whatever, it is now shareable.

I know the title of my blog "Merklemania" is silly, but I will explain it. I had the privilege of serving in the Siberian city of Tomsk for around 9 months as a missionary. In the late 90s Siberia was a bit behind western Russia in a lot of things so a lot of things Communist (such as the statues of Lenin) were still standing. I was walking to district meeting with my companion, two elders, and two sisters (basically my district) and we happened to traverse Lenin Square. At that time Lenin was still standing there (and he may still be). I commented that one day, in the future, my statue would be standing in Lenin's place. One of the sisters (who is Ukrainian) commented that I was suffering from delusions of grandeur. In Russian that is more literally stated "mania of greatness". Thus, Merkle-mania. Now to get the train back on the tracks.

I am about to touch on something that is pretty sensitive. I am doing so mainly because I want some ideas from people out there regarding what I have to say. The topic is one that is to most, considered untouchable, so I ask for some patience and understanding in this.

In Alma 32 (in The Book of Mormon) Alma says that faith is like a seed. You plant it and nurture it and if you do everything it will grow and the fruit will be great. I am honestly getting to the point in my life that I feel I have been watering and watering and waiting... And the only real fruit I see is more faith. Not denying that I am blessed and I feel a divine hand in my life, but I don't know that I can attribute that necessarily to a certain (what seems to me) restrictive and dogmatic concept of God. I am not, in saying this, declaring open war on religion, or my own particular religion, I am just trying to come to grips with myself and God and the universe and everything.

I struggle because I feel I am being torn in two all the time. I guess it is the whole two masters thing. I know there are many people wiser and intellectually superior to college degree not holding me who handle the whole religion thing fairly well, so I am interested on whatever input you might have. Please, however, I beg, plead, exhort, beg, do not answer my questions or concerns with a testimony or the response that I just need to have more faith. I understand that perspective. I struggle with discussing serious matters with religious people due to the fact that it seems people are trained to respond to question with something along the lines of "I know without a shadow of a doubt from the depths of my soul that..." Not to denigrate the faith or beliefs that I know are very important to a lot of people out there, but I understand that perspective, in fact it is the very thing I find myself struggling with.

My battle is between two powers that are very important to me. Faith and reason. I feel torn because what I have been taught to believe, and generally accepted in the past, to be a loving, fatherly god-figure, gave me a brain that is constantly asking questions. He gave me (all humans really) the ability to question and judge and to some degree understand. And then it seems he expects me to turn that whole part of me off whenever it comes to anything that could possibly fall into the strictures of a certain religion, which is guess is really the crux of my problem. Maybe it is because I feel I am living in a very myopic culture, overly dependent on conventions that I do not be leave to be inherent in the Law or the Good News, or the divine Plan. Maybe I have had excessive exposure to the outside world, Babylon, call it what you will, and seen too much beauty and good external to the ranks of the Chosen or the Righteous or the Saints. Maybe I am just deficient. A lot of "religious" types tend to think that if you struggle or you question that you are somehow either deficient, or a serious sinner. I do not consider myself perfect, but I do not think I am a heavy sinner, nor do I feel I am deficient, so I am putting my thoughts out there to get feedback from people I respect, not only personally, but also intellectually.

It seems to me the more organized a religion is, the stricter and more confining its definition of divinity is, and also the greater it conflicts with science.

I guess the clearest example to me is the conflict between Christ and Darwin. More appropriately the conflict between the "followers" of Jesus, and the "disciples" of Darwin. It seems to me that is the clearest line of demarcation between religion and reason. Or at least between the more highly structured conservative Christian type religions and science. People read in the Bible (which many in the first group strongly, strongly believe to be completely and definitely literally true and infallible) that man was created on day six in the image of God, and they accept that to be unassailable truth, and therefore not only discount the theory of evolution in its entirety, along with things like natural selection, but pretty much a great deal of biological and social science progress that has developed since Darwin.

I am not saying I necessarily believe that man came down from monkeys who came down from some sort of less complex mammal who came down from some sort of proto-mammalian reptile who came down from some sort of amphibian who came from some sort of soup who came down from a bunch of goopy cells millions-billions of years ago. What I struggle with is the idea that the things we are able to observe personally, first-hand, like the fossil record, all kinds of anthropological, geological, and tangible stuff are often put in direct conflict, by religious people, with deity, and at the same time all things divine or deistic are under steady assault by men and women or science.

I guess I really struggle with the fact that we have this whole world out there full of information that we admittedly are unable to interpret appropriately or completely, but that definitely conflicts with a lot of religious dogma, and the only answer to all of that is faith. I have a hard time understanding, or in a sense wanting to understand a divine, loving, creative being that throws all that in our face just to test us or whatever people out there want to think it is.

Well, I failed miserably to get anywhere near a point with any of this but I will leave it there because I am curious to see if firstly, anyone reads this, and secondarily, what anyone who actually gets to the end of this might have to say.

This is again, not meant to be an assault on anything anyone out there holds holy. I just feel that organized religion has spent thousands of years putting god in a box. A very small box that strictly defines what god is and gives god anthropomorphic features.

I mean it. I feel like I am being torn in half. I have faith and it has always been very important to me, and I realized recently that I need that faith, but I am really struggling because I have a hard time accepting, and even not hating, a creator who would make me the type of person I am, give me so many questions and so many wonderful things to think about and ponder upon, and then make me feel damned for not knowing where to draw the lines where it comes to what questions I am allowed to ask and all that.

Also, I do not believe that even if the concept of God and eternity and life and such I have been raised with and generally accepted is true, I do not believe that at death everything suddenly makes sense, I personally think that would thwart agency and really diminish the value and import of mortal existence, so please don't tell me to hold on and wait till I die when it will all make sense.

I hope I have gotten my general idea out there. I haven't even gotten to politics and the literalness of scripture (particularly the Bible) or the current composition of the Bible (how it was established which books were canonical and which apocryphal) and many other things that would definitely be taboo, or I perceive to be taboo, in many religious circles.

I realize my knowledge of the universe and life and divinity is definitely, and the universe and truth are infinite, so it may seem arrogant for me to ask some of these questions. I hope the sincerity of my questioning is apparent, as well as the futility I fee. Seriously, I go to church, and feel like I am on a rack. Pulled two directions. I either need to find a balance, or pray I break in such a way that whatever is left of me benefits from its position.