"History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake."

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Perfection, Voltaire, and the Beta

Jeff Jarvis over at BuzzMachine connects Voltaire's formulation on the harmfulness of the demand for perfection to Beta releases (worth a read):

Voltaire was half right. “Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien,” he said: The best is the enemy of the good. The best is also the enemy of the better. Striving for perfection complicates and delays getting things done. Worse, the myth of perfection can shut off the process of improvement and the possibility of collaboration. 

Beyond this specific application, I think the demand for perfection is absurd. For one thing, it is impossible, and the attempt to achieve it is psychologically destructive. It's far better to try to find oneself and express that. The problem with perfection is that it usually is a demand to conform to some outside standard, imposed by others. I say, find your authentic self, and be as true to that as you can be - we're always a Beta version.

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