PERFECTION essay as per your request

This is the essay I wrote, about which I told you. Unless I didn't tell you about it, because I've only told a couple people about it and I imagine only one of them might ever read this. Though there's a chance that another might at some point. But pretty much, this is for you Austin.

I already explained a little of the background of this essay to Austin. For anyone else, or as a refresher with some new details, I wrote this for a scholarship application. The prompt asked us to write a question that would demonstrate our uniqueness, and then to answer it. The length limit was one page with 10 pt font and 1 inch margins in Microsoft Word (I think). I told people who asked what I'd chosen for a question that I'd written on "When do you like to paint the rainbows." Sometimes I left the "the" out. I really did consider writing on this question, but decided not to be so * * creative. This was probably in my best interest.

Before I paste the essay, I thought I might make a comment. I've often felt that my Senior year in high school was kind of my high point in terms of writing ability. But reading this essay that I considered my best work at the time I wrote it (late December of 2002), I feel that there are a lot of things which I could improve. I mean, just some pretty basic punctuation and grammar and word choice things in addition to some more overarching content issues. A couple lines in there I'd like to go back and bash up note by note. So maybe my writing ability hasn't declined as much as I'd thought. Or maybe I'm just vain enough to always consider my current writing style as something about which it's worth writing home. Either way, I've always (or at least for the last several years) been very sensitive to dangling prepositions.

Though now re-reading it again, I recognize that I could never hope to replicate some of the syntax I was busting out back then. I mean, look at the first sentence in the Christmas paragraph - no way can I see myself writing that kind of a sentence today. And then juxtaposed with the other sentence in the paragraph... not to brag, but...


Anyway, the essay:

If tonight you were to set the alarm on your clock for "PERFECTION," when would it wake you?

I suppose to answer this question I must first define perfection. Webster's Dictionary defines perfection very well, I'm sure, but all I've got is World Book, and neither Mr. Webster nor the good people at World Book wrote my question. I personally struggle to define perfection, for it carries with it a certain ineffable quality. It is flawlessness, but such a definition requires a knowledge of what is or isn't a flaw. It is unsurpassable excellence, but then one must designate that which can or can't be surpassed. The definition on which I have settled still fails to fully describe all the facets of perfection, but I think it allows for the individual to see an individual perfection. For the purposes of this essay, and for the purposes of my present life, I'll define perfection as a state in which everything is as it should be. What, then, is my personal perfection? I am confident that there is no single answer to such a question. I can imagine innumerable situations that would be, by my definition, perfect. I have lived through innumerably more. Life is, for me, a continuing perfection, a perfection which I can only begin to describe, a perfection that defies all description. All I can do is illustrate a few examples of this perfection. All I can say is that everything is as it should be.

Perfection is gathering with my family on Christmas morning and, when the colorless glow from the pre-dawn sky fills the room with a very little light, when 400 vividly colored bulbs on a half-dozen strands of K-Mart lights tangled around a slightly sagging Christmas tree fill the room with a little more light, we sing and read in absolute unison of Christ, some of us smiling, some of us crying, all of us smiling, all filling the room with absolute light. This is perfection.

I often find perfection in music. Playing the organ for seventy priesthood holders every Sunday, though a number of them are somewhat less than vocally inclined, is perfect. Singing with the ward choir is perfect. Playing viola with the high school orchestra, playing to the point of "truculence," beyond the breaking point of not a few of my bow hairs, playing so quietly I have to strain to hear anything, all of this is perfection. Playing the piano, whether it's Brahms, the Beatles, or Blind Boone, I find perfection. Shape Note Singing, a capella, with a slightly nasal tone, the loudest slightly nasal tone I can muster, singing at the top of my lungs until my voice goes hoarse, taking a five-minute break to suck madly away at a cough drop, and then singing a bit more, this is perfection. I've been told this will ruin my voice, but I don't do it often, and when I do, it gives me more joy than I can comprehend. If my voice goes, it will go perfectly.

Perfection is researching cars, cameras, or, though he isn't so handily alliterative this time, Blind Boone.

Perfection is a 73-year-old Bishop who has seen and done it all, or at least all that is worth seeing and doing. A Bishop who was once mayor, who was once on the high-council, who was once a talented artist, who was once a prize-winning gardener, who served for thirty years as a fireman, who last week pulled someone else's calf from the canal, who wouldn't give a dime to a dishonest customer, but would give his last cent and his right hand for an honest friend in need. A Bishop who once climbed mountains. When I see such a man crumple in tears at the mention of his father, that too is perfection.

Perfection is sitting alone on a faded wooden bench under an apple tree that hasn't been pruned for years, and watching the snow fall. It is silent. There is no wind, so the snow comes straight down; that is, unless I watch the individual flakes, for they drift here and there and a little closer, a little to the left, before they fade into the ground. If I try hard enough, maybe I too could fade without sound into the wet, brown grass. It is still silent. And then, I, driven by some force far quieter than the snow, but just as real and just as strong, I shout. There are no words, just a rush of joy, a rush of praise, a rush of perfection. All quickly fades to silent when I close my lips. And though I am certain the noise traveled no more than a foot or two from me, the sound, like that of the falling snow, echoes eternally.

This earth was created by a perfect being, who came here and lived a perfect life. There were no mistakes in the creation of the world, nor in the creation of man, and although there is vast evil in the world, that is only temporary, because no mistakes have been or will be made in the Lord's plan. Our God would not allow anything to be anything but what it should be. Such a testimony of a perfect gospel is a very comforting perfection.

I have found perfection in a hundred-thousand places, but the nearest is here and now. Perfection is sitting in an oversized folding-chair with a small brown cat curled up next to me, just barely purring. Perfection is using the line, "Neither Mr. Webster nor the good people at World Book," it is making subtle jokes about Blind Boone, it is writing an essay that I think I really like.

When, then, would my alarm clock wake me if set for "PERFECTION?" Tomorrow is Tuesday, and I have to catch the bus, so it will wake me at 5:51 A.M. I will hit the snooze button once, and only once, and I will truly wake up at six o'clock, half-ready for another perfect day. That, I think, is the way it should be.