A Dream of Imperfection

I woke up the other day with the last images of a dream loitering in my head. I was seated in a sun room with my brothers and sisters. We had just returned from a visit to the Constitution Center in Philadelphia and we were sharing our impressions. It was an unusual dream. I don’t know what prompted it. Growing up in a working-class family with eight brothers and sisters, museum trips were not on the agenda. I grew up with the mistaken stereotype that museums were for rich people. Ironically, I have spent most of my professional life not only visiting museums, but designing exhibits that make museums more welcoming and engaging for all visitors. And yet I still have not become rich myself. Hmmm?

My brothers and sisters expressed a general sense of approval for what they had seen, although I can’t recall any specifics. The Constitution Center interprets the historical experience of Americans grappling with the rights and freedoms articulated in our foundational documents. When my turn came, I surprised myself by launching into a kind of speech about the unlikely daring of our founding fathers. The phrase “band of bandits” lingered in my head as I lay there trying to replay the dream. It really was quite amazing. This geographically dispersed and culturally diverse group of colonists managed to assemble in secret to first declare their independence from the age’s reigning superpower, and then to organize themselves in such a manner that they intentionally divided the powers of governance among federal, state, and local bodies, with each further parsing their authority to executive, legislative, and judicial branches. “We the people” … WE, the collective, embody this government. WE choose individuals among us to temporarily exercise the duties of governance, but WE retain the power. And, even more profound, from that founding Declaration, “WE hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” It would take us a while for “all men” to mean “all people” (and some would argue we still have some distance to travel in that regard), but what an extra-ordinary statement and how eloquently written.

As I was laying there pondering the impetus and meaning of my dream, I thought about how we organize ourselves. We are social creatures. The first group that surrounds and nurtures us is our family. We are bonded to them whether or not we choose it to be so, whether we deserve them or they us. As we grow older, we expand our circle to include friends and neighbors, playmates, classmates, teammates, club members, colleagues, citizens, fantasy sports enthusiasts. And in widening concentric circles, we organize ourselves so that we can accomplish collectively what we cannot accomplish individually. Committees, unions, school boards, town councils, county boards, state legislatures, Congress, the UN, and (maybe one day) the United Federation of Planets—WE create bodies to organize and govern ourselves. Everyone is meant to benefit and everyone is expected to contribute. That is the goal. We strive for fairness, although we don’t always get there and we often disagree about what fair means. We don’t always get what we want. We are united but not of one mind, so we must use persuasion and compromise to move things forward, always striving toward a “more perfect union.”

That last phrase, “more perfect,” has always struck me as odd. Why more perfect? If a thing is perfect, it can’t be improved upon, so why “more perfect?” It reminds me of Darwin’s arrow of imperfection that over time propels the evolution of life. We are like our parents. We inherit traits from them. But we are not exact replicas. We are imperfect. But some of those imperfections turn out to be advantages. In a world that is constantly presenting us with new challenges and new opportunities, some of those imperfections turn out to be just what we need to make it over those hurdles, to embrace those moments. And as we join forces, the great diversity of our imperfections makes us ever more capable, ever more adaptable and inventive. WE become greater than the sum of our parts. And yet the “We” that we speak about still includes at its core that profound respect for each and every one of us. WE has to include all of us or it includes none of us. WE are in this together or it all falls apart.

We are living in a time of great, great change. The scope and pace of change has never been more sweeping or more rapid. It’s easy to become afraid, to want to step back and shield ourselves from that forward momentum. And yet our knowledge and technology have enabled humanity to be safer, healthier, and more prosperous than we’ve ever been. Still, that same technology informs us daily about the many, many areas in which we must improve … to become more perfect. We must continue to strive to make things fair. We must help those who are in distress. We must remember that we are stronger when we embrace our differences. And we must be wise caretakers of our home planet. We must leave the place better than we found it so that our children may thrive and pass it along to their children. We are a family, a community, a nation, fellow creatures sharing the same Earth. We owe that debt to ourselves and to each other. We all benefit. We all contribute. We all matter. That’s the dream.