by Larik Sonfar

Created on: May 23, 2008

Several months ago, a friend of mine, who I will anonymously refer to as Joe, wrote and entitled an essay, Joeism defining and detailing the provisions of "perfection". This was to be a perfection of the purest kind, that is, a perfection founded solely upon hypothetical conceptualizations. Because the nature of perfection was entirely subjective to the beholder, perfection existed only as the utopia of individual minds. In other words, perfection to a greedy man might be a world where he had claim over all its valuable possessions, while perfection for a glut might be a world where he would do nothing but satisfy his desire for food. While these are obviously very elementary examples, the basic idea was a world where we are god. Convincing as this may be, this conception of "perfection" is flawed on four critical levels.

Joeism begins by declaring that the search of millions for perfection is a hopeless goal. This framework for the rest of the essay however, is faulty in of itself. It should not be noted that the goal of perfection is hopeless, but rather that is not a desirable goal to begin with. People spend the entirety of their lives taking action. That is not to say that they are active in their communities, in politics, or in any other similar sense. Rather, taking action should be interpreted to mean its most fundamental definition, that of acting at all. In each action, there is a goal. When we sleep, we seek to solve our fatigue; when we eat, we desire to end our hunger. It can thus be said that human life is spent in search of a certain end. The quest that is to bring upon us these ends has the effect of making us happy. Some people are happy when they make hordes of money; others find equal content in helping the poor or fighting for honor. In each of these instances, the happiness is found in either the search or finding of the desired end. The greedy may find joy in the discovery of treasure, while the Samaritan may find delight in just acting to help fellow members of humanity in need. The loss of the ends, then, would also predestine the extinction of the searches. True perfection, under any interpretation, would have no flaws, whatever a flaw may be. If there were no problems in the world, then there would be nothing to be solved. In this manner, the ends of our actions, the solving of problems, along with our actions themselves, the action of solving, would be inexistent, effectively dooming happiness. For example, a glut who achieved happiness

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