Distilling Perfection

This Margaret Atwood poem distills why, achieving milestones associated with achieving ownership of material things always feels underwhelming. Either the feeling is not what you imagined it would be or the goal-posts move further so you still don't have reason to celebrate. There is never that wholesome feeling of having achieved perfection.

I can count five times in my life so far when I had accomplished a milestone that meant a lot to me and came after many struggles. I had imagined that moment of crossing the finish line many times and how wonderful it would feel; how life would fundamentally change after that event. Every single time that rush if it came at all, was extremely short-lived. The day after or the week after it is like Atwood describes " the air moves back from you like a wave and you can't breathe"

The moment when, after many years

of hard work and a long voyage

you stand in the center of your room,

house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,

knowing at last how you got there,

and say, I own this,

is the same moment when the trees unloose

 

their soft arms from around you,

the birds take back their language,

the cliffs fissure and collapse,

the air moves back from you like a wave

and you can’t breathe.

 

No, they whisper. You own nothing.

You were a visitor, time after time

climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.

We never belonged to you.

You never found us.

It was always the other way round.