Here it is late in May. Across the country thousands of graduating college seniors are about to be addressed by hundreds of wise men and women who will counsel them on how to succeed once they have left the comfortable womb of the campus. In one way or another, distinguished speakers will hold forth with ideas regarding paths to achieving a perfect life. Fortunately, the sound of popping corks and the excitement of the moment will result in the wave of graduates who will shortly pour onto the shores of our real world ignoring this guidance. As a matter of fact, they would be much better off chewing over my own conviction that perfect is the enemy of good enough.
In their years on campus, students experience a masquerade of perfection. Professors, most of whom profess to be founts of ultimate truth, transmit knowledge that is assumed to be perfectly true to life. Why would all that tuition be paid to expose students to ambiguity, uncertainty, and messiness? “I don”t know” is rarely, if ever, an answer to a curious student”s question. The square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle does equal the sum of the squares of its sides … every time .. no if ands or buts. Pavlov”s dog will salivate every time he rings the bell … every time. A feather falling in a vacuum will descend at the same rate as a bowling ball … every time. The candidate winning a majority of votes in the electoral college will become President … every time.
Students have been unwittingly exposed to a world view that is comparable to an astronaut”s perspective of planet earth from space: a perfectly round blue-green sphere rotating to produce unerringly predictable sunrises and sunsets and tilted on its axis to deliver predictable seasons. As spacemen and women, however, fire their retro-rockets and descend toward earth they come closer and closer to the variations and vagaries of the natural world and the caprice, whims, fancies, and frailty of human nature. Perhaps this is why the wise writer George Plimpton long ago advised Harvard graduating seniors to turn on their heels, return to their rooms and unpack because “there”s not much out here.” Plimpton realized the validity of the words attributed to the astoundingly successful Bill Gates, “If you think your teacher is tough, wait ”til you get a boss. He doesn”t have tenure.”
Once the excitement of graduation day fades, graduates might be well advised to take a deep breath and relax in front of a large flat screen TV. Here they can mine the rich vein of truth running through the annals of streaming film and DVDs. I would advise students to probe the plot of films that reveal, with high-definition precision, that perfection is indeed the enemy of good enough, especially when dealing with issues that were not covered in math or science or history 101.
A place to start might be the classic film “The Graduate.” Recent college graduate Benjamin Braddock has fallen in love with Mrs. Robinson”s daughter Elaine. Mrs. Robinson wants her daughter to enter a perfect marriage with the perfect man. That is certainly not Benjamin. To thwart his love for Elaine, Mrs. Robinson traps him into a sleazy affair. Benjamin may be trapped in more ways than one. He is coaxed by the advice of a family friend who asks, “Benjamin are you listening?” Benjamin replies, “Yes I am.” Then comes the word that is the supposed illumination of Benjamin”s future happiness. The word is “Plastics.” In the end, Benjamin resists the too good to be true lure of Mrs. Robinson”s body as well as the temptation of a career in plastics. He forces his way into Elaine”s picture-perfect wedding ceremony. She does not resist his dragging her out of the church and onto a waiting bus that will take Benjamin and his runaway bride into an uncertain future.
This film story tells us that as Mrs. Robinson”s quest for a perfect son-in-law is thwarted, and as Benjamin resists a perfect future in plastics, he and Elaine will live in an imperfect world where they will experience a complex mixed bag of joy and sadness, ups and downs, good and bad, fulfillment and disappointment. The sum total may not be perfect. It is reasonable, however, to imagine that it will be better than Elaine”s life would have been with the man who is her mother”s choice, or that Benjamin”s would have been as a plastics industry magnate.
The film “Moonstruck” is another cautionary tale. Loretta Castorini is a member of a large traditional Italian-American family. She is approaching middle age. Much to the consternation of the parents with whom she lives, she is not married. This is a situation that is neither perfect nor good enough. In an attempt to approach a more perfect status, Loretta becomes engaged to marry the boring, drab, and dull Johnny Cammarerei. Johnny is off to Italy to visit his dying mother. In Johnny”s absence Loretta meets his brother Ronny. Ronny is far from perfect and his imperfection is emphasized by the fact that as the result of an accident he has an artificial right hand. Ronny is quite taken with Loretta and he convinces her to accompany him to the opera La Boheme. Loretta proclaims that the production was awful because “She died … she was coughing her brains out, and still she had to keep on singing.” Ronnie points out that opera is great because in most of grand opera a loving relationship ends when one of the partners dies. This sort of ending is not at all perfect, but a tragic end makes the experience of an intense love affair worth the pain. No pain, no gain. The film story makes a seamless transition from grand opera to a grand seduction. Late that night Ronny and Loretta are on the street outside of Ronny”s apartment. When Loretta resists his insistence that they go up stairs and make love Ronny reacts with, “Loretta, I love you. Not like they told you love is, and I didn”t know this either, but love don”t make things nice ? it ruins everything. It breaks your heart. It makes things a mess. We aren”t here to make things perfect. The snowflakes are perfect. The stars are perfect. Not us. Not us! We are here to ruin ourselves and to break our hearts and love the wrong people and die. The storybooks are bull. Now I want you to come upstairs with me and get in my bed!” Well, Loretta does just that. Suddenly, she realizes that she loves Ronny. In front of the family and her fiance, she declares her love as well as the cancellation of her engagement to his brother Johnny.
Just as with Benjamin in The Graduate Loretta is tempted to move toward a hollow vision of perfection. With Benjamin it was plastics. With Loretta it is a marriage of convenience to Johnny. And just like Benjamin, Loretta rebels, rejects the influence of others and finds her own path to the future. And just like Benjamin and Elaine, Loretta and Ronny will muddle through, experiencing all the vagaries of human existence and in the end will have found a life that may not achieve the ideal of perfection, but will satisfy their finite human aspirations.
If our recent graduate needs some comedic relief, he or she can view the film “Some Like it Hot.” Here two musicians, who unwittingly observe a Valentine”s Day gangland massacre, disguise themselves as women to escape from the hoodlums who want to do away with witnesses. The two join an all woman”s band heading for a long-term gig at a south Florida resort hotel. One of the guests at the hotel, the rich, eccentric older gentleman Osgood, falls in love with Jerry, who is posing as Daphne. As the hilarious story winds to a close, with the bad guys chasing him, Jerry, still posing as the woman Daphne, jumps into the launch bound for Osgood”s yacht. Osgood pops the question. “Will you marry me?” Jerry comes up with a list of objections for why he and Osgood cannot get married, ranging from a smoking habit to infertility. Osgood dismisses them all; he loves Daphne and is determined to go through with the marriage. Exasperated, Jerry removes his wig and shouts, “I”m a man! Osgood simply responds with, “Well, nobody”s perfect.”
?Nuff said.
Stephen Sloane is a Lake County resident, a retired Naval Officer and a Professor at Saint Mary”s College of California. He is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and has earned a Ph.D at the University of California, Berkeley. Reach him at cowboy91671@gmail.com.
