Imperfection is Still Good

adrienne maree brown stated something very early in Emergent Strategy that continues to resonate with me: “Something is injured in my knee, but I am feeling alive against my limits.” Immediately, I sighed. Yes. It doesn’t have to be perfect to be good. Too frequently I, a Type A 1w2 hypercritical overachiever, fall into the trap of perfection and need to associate my value with achievement. If it is not the best, I didn’t put in enough effort. If I’m not doing the most, what am I doing?

It doesn’t have to be perfect to be good.

adrienne maree brown’s introduction to Emergent Strategy reminds us that while we are small, we make up a complex system that influences itself in a multidirectional, multidimensional way. And yet, despite being so interconnected, we “slip out of togetherness the way we slip out of the womb, bloody and messy and surprised to be alone.”

This compounded lack of togetherness and need for perfection prevents us, as a society, from innovating. It keeps us locked in systems designed to harm because we feel hopeless at developing anything better.

Recently, I helped facilitate a webinar on domestic violence responses and COVID19. During the panel, the moderator, Margarita Guzman of VIP Mujeres said the following:

“When we say ‘this is messed up and needs to change,’” the response is immediately “‘well, what is the perfect alternative to the police?’ because for some reason there needs to be a perfect plan in order to explore alternatives. We can say ‘not this’ and that be enough to explore different options.”

I can’t help but think that adreinne maree brown would agree. The response to an imperfect, harmful system does not need to be the immediately perfect one; it simply needs to be a way for humans to become more aligned and in right relationship with each other. When we think linearly and individually, as seen in so many failed ventures that attempt to revolutionize our society, we fall back into the oppressive tendencies and systems we claim to fight against. Take, for example, the criminalization of survivors of domestic violence that results from carceral feminism. “Emergent strategy,” brown says, “is how we intentionally change in ways that grow our capacity to embody the just and liberated worlds we long for.” It doesn’t need to be perfect to be good, but it must be just.

Innovation and resulting liberation depend on us understanding that perfectionism is the antithesis of change. Perfectionism, when unchecked, can become maladaptive, freezing us in the broken system with a good idea but too much fear to move forward. “If we accept the scientific and science fictional premise that change is a constant condition of this universe, then if becomes important that we learn to be in right relationship with change,” that we learn to become adaptable and amorphous. That we understand that perfection is not only often unattainable, but it is harmful. Failure, brown says, is all data and we should move past scarcity economics and imposed limiting beliefs that keep us fearful. “We have to ideate — imagine and conceive — together.” Waiting to overhaul a system that actively harms simply because we don’t have the perfect answer isn’t revolution. It’s perpetuation of oppression.

Some definitions, all lifted from Emergent Strategy’s Introduction
Emergent Strategy: small interactions create big complex patterns and systems of change; critical connection over critical mass.
Permaculture: ways for humans to practice being in right relationship to our home and each other, to practice complexity and grow a compelling future together through relatively simple interactions.
Chaos Theory: interdisciplinary theory; within the apparent randomness of chaotic complex systems, there are underlying patterns, inter-connectedness, constant feedback loops, repetition, self-similarity, fractals, and self-organization
Dialectal Humanism: the cycle of collective transformation of beliefs that occurs as we gather new information and experiences, meaning that, over time, we can understand and hold a position we previously believed to be wrong.