ESSAY WINNER

The question of is there such a thing as a “perfect” world or whether or not there can be one,  is one of great mystery and subjectivity because there is a vastness of conditions of which may be considered perfect. I personally believe that the only way to approach this question is from a personal and somewhat abstract frame of mind.

There can be no perfect world because it is the imperfections of existence that have a hand in defining what is. Also, as I stated earlier, there is no one view of perfection and it is highly unlikely that humanity would be able to come to consensus of what is to be called the perfect world. It is impossible for there to be a definably perfect world because there would be nothing to contrast it to. Perfect exists as the opposite of imperfect. And you wouldn’t be able to say, “Well, we’re only talking about the world and nothing outside of it,” because it should be assumed that the perfect world is only a part of a much bigger system, which must also be perfect; a perfect universe.Were it even possible, with such a place it would be impossible to be aware of it because were the world truly perfect, then there would be nothing to consider imperfect and thus nothing that was definably perfect. There lays a paradox.       

In such a place, under such circumstances of which there can be no definition of perfect or imperfect, it can be presumed that other platforms of life, society and civilization would also be disrupted and cease to have any meaning. What is villainy; what are heroics? What is good or bad? etc. As such, how would we discern the validity of valor, general goodness, etc? This may not be the best example, but in the 2009 high concept, romantic comedy “The Invention of Lying,” when the first lie was told, there was no name for it. It was described as “saying something that wasn’t.” There was no name for it because “it” didn’t exist until then. The concept of lying was completely new. Thus, in that world, the truth was not the truth, but simply was.

For the reason that in a perfect world there would be no imperfections, but without defined imperfection there can be no known perfection, there is no such thing as a perfect world and there can never be. The closest thing that there can ever be is what is now, and what has been, and what will be. If a believer in conceptual philosophy and/or that of fate, one would argue that it is the imperfections that not only play a role in defining what is, but that they prove that everything is as it should be. And also that all that has ever occurred, was meant to have.