The Privy Counsel (A Bog Blog): Per Aspera ad Astra; or, Musings on Perfection; or, Off-the-Chain Crazy

Perfection. It is our destiny, as a species, to be always striving for it yet never reach it. We toil, sweat and strive - per aspera ad astra - yet are doomed to an eternal state of not quite getting there; a perpetual Salieri syndrome. The preconditions of our existence forbid the concept of perfection to exist except as an imaginary ideal. Plato helps us to come to terms with the impossibility of perfection by inviting us to view the world as made up of eide, perfect forms or ideas, which however are unavailable to us; what our senses perceive is but a copy of the perfect form, crude and imperfect. Even if we were to achieve perfection, the ancients tell us, we cannot hold onto it, for everything is in flux. In a universe defined by entropy, the attainment of perfection can only ever be an illusion; a fleeting phenomenon; a bird in flight glimpsed for a moment in the flickering light of a longhouse hearth. Panta, as Heraclitus would have it, rei. The quest for perfection is bound to cause frustration and, if not actual weeping, certainly the gnashing of teeth.

Or, as Oscar Wilde philosophised: We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. In other words, the world's a mess, there are rampant slugs voraciously eating everything we've carefully planted, and we've ground and gnashed our teeth to the point where our dentist feels compelled to ask some very unsettling and weirdly personal questions: Perfection is indeed a fleeting, unattainable ideal. However, if we follow the example of our favourite Irish poet and raise our eyes from the sewer, drain, or gully in which we are ensconced, we may contemplate, if only for a moment, the celestial spheres planted in the sky for our delight and edification. The stars here represent, as our alert and intelligent readers have already gleaned, the unattainable ideal of perfection: the eidos. We are here going to make a rather bold claim, namely that we have identified three such celestial spheres that, contrary to the claims of that ass Plato, exist in our actual physical world. The contemplation of these stellar phenomena make life, we would argue, bearable.

It is very rarely that one agrees fully with anything one reads or hears. Whether because of ideological differences; cold, rational reasoning; or unrestrained delusions of grandeur; one is sure to get hung up on some statement, claim or supposition and present counter-arguments which may or may not be unbearably pedantic. (Hell, we don't even agree with everything Our Mum says, though we defer to her on most issues.) There are, however, as mentioned above, three exceptions to what we may term the Rule of Perpetual Disagreement; three reachable stars of, if you will, earthly perfection.

The first star of earthly perfection is this podcast episode about the correct approach to Christmas decorations, by Swedish intellectuals Ann Heberlein and Anna-Karin Wyndhamn. This cerebral and aesthetical oeuvre is a masterpiece of logic and sanity, and frankly comes as close as possible to perfection as it is possible to get in this flawed, imperfect world. Tust us: you may take every word as gospel.

The second celestial sphere of impeccable exquisiteness is George Orwell's essay on how to make tea. Though the gods of Olympus toy with our fates for their own amusement, manipulating us and forcing us to navigate such hellish phenomena as hangovers, slugs, and corporate trust exercises, they have granted us a panacea: Camellia sinensis and boiling water. No-one understands the divine properties of tea, or expresses the correct method of wielding it, better than Orwell. Consider, for instance, his first point:

First of all, one should use Indian or Ceylonese tea. China tea has virtues which are not to be despised nowadays—it is economical, and one can drink it without milk—but there is not much stimulation in it. One does not feel wiser, braver or more optimistic after drinking it.

Aah. Read it, and let yourself be soothed by wisdom, wit, and hot water.

The third heavenly phenomenon which makes life bearable is of course equestrian statues. Time, however, is fleeting; more on this another time.

Let us quickly move on to something else which surely approaches the status of a celestial sphere of perfection that we may glimpse through the imperfect prism of this mortal coil: Bog pics from Jonny! That handsome rascal has been to Wales, and what he has been up to we had better not divulge for fear of shocking sensitive readers. You may be sure of this, however: If George Orwell's instructions regarding tea represent the sublime, then Jonny's bog pics from Wales symbolise the chaos of the human condition. Having sent us pictures of some very beautiful and intriguing hygiene facilities, Jonny then writes:

I have a less beautiful one.

Wondering where that room on the left leads?Here.

Since it is our custom to post a toilet selfie from Jonny, in order to boost morale along our readers, here's one from earlier this year.

The poet Nashe claims - and who are we to contradict him? - that,

Spring, the sweet spring, is the year's pleasant king,

Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring,

Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing:

Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-wo!

Doubtless he is not only right but would have chosen, if given the option, to illustrate his poem with this picture of Jonny.

This post's Festive Video represents, if you ask Shewee Fiend Friend, perfection. Permit us, if you will, to disagree. If it makes you feel better, the message that preceded Shewee Fiend Friend sending us the link to this piece of music read: