Good Enough

My best friend and I were working on some minor chore together when after a while he said, “Okay, that’s good enough.” And it was good enough considering what we were doing. But it got me to thinking. My best friend and I often engage in lengthy, almost totally pointless debates about ideas, events, or actions of ourselves and other people. We have been known to debate whether or not one should strive for perfection (his idea) or excellence (my idea). I think it is easier to articulate what excellence means, than what perfection means. However, I think I can recognize perfection when I see it.

Perfection exists in the beauty of the well-restored antique automobile– especially in the American cars of the 1950’s and 1960’s. We used to take our 1964 Pontiac GTO to lots of car shows. There were particularly good shows at the Endicott Estate in Dedham every June, the Edaville Railroad in Carver, and a great one every autumn in Bennington, VT. And for a long time, you could see great cars every Friday or Saturday night at the old Nick’s drive-in in Natick.

As I walk around a car show, looking at all the Fords, Chevys, Pontiacs, Buicks, Caddies, Mercs,  Olds,  I am astounded at the perfection represented in those cars.  Often I can see NO flaw, nothing that could be improved.  The paint job, the chrome, the rug, headliner, dashboard, upholstery, tires, everything under the hood, even the trunk is perfect.  No scratches, no dents, no fingerprints, no blemishes of any kind.  A perfectly restored car looks good, it smells good, and it even sounds good if it has a big engine and an exhaust system that roars as you peel off in first gear.

But unless you do the hands-on restoration yourself, you are merely the caretaker of the resultant work of automotive perfection, not the creator.  To be the creator of perfection, even excellence, is much better.

My best friend and I go to an excellent quilt show each year in Augusta, Maine.   Yes, he goes to the quilt show with me. His mother and grandmother were quilters, as am I, so he has a long history of being expected to appreciate fiber arts.

I love quilt shows. After a day of wandering up and down aisles in a large auditorium looking at the handiwork of so many women (and some men, too) I am struck by the fact that in towns across America people are designing and making their own high quality artistic creations. Design and functionality blended into art. So much talent.  Such hard work.

It needn’t be quilts; it could be woodworking – making furniture, designing and building a shed. When you make something for yourself, you get what you want, the way you want it, to fit your needs. And you can work past that “good enough” stage, on to excellence, and, if you are very, very good at it, perfection.

When we stopped making things ourselves, we too often settled for “good enough”. But excellence lies dormant in every task we undertake. Watch a really good stonemason build a rock wall, or see the care with which a capable painter prepares and paints a house. We expect professional artists to design and make fine works of art, but when each of us makes something, with our own hands, we learn the value of good materials and practices. We learn to overcome mistakes and push on to excellence and accomplishment. You end up with something you are not afraid to put your name on and show to others.

Even the seemingly small tasks of preparing a meal, playing a musical instrument for ones own enjoyment, or knitting a scarf, are opportunities to employ care and attention.  How wonderful to be totally present and “lost” in what you are doing, when you are making something.

We took art, home economics, and wood and metal shop out of the education system. Now we think we can appreciate the excellence of what others have made, even though we have no personal experience with what goes into making anything. 

So architects and interior designers tell us what to do with our houses.  Horticultural experts design our landscaping.  An international one-size-fits-all design style is employed in producing our clothing and home furnishings.   Specialists are engaged to tell us what our town centers and civic buildings should look like while committee members nod in agreement having little knowledge of what is required, what is possible.   Because we don’t create things ourselves, we lack the imagination to see the possibilities of what’s before us, and we lack the experience to recognize mistakes before they occur.

We end up surrounded by things that might or might not be good enough. Very little rises to excellence, and except for that sweet little red 1964 Thunderbird convertible over there, hardly anything that is perfect.