This is something that really concerns me at the moment.  In this current climate of having to be a certain something, be it gender, colour, race, nationality to be accepted, we have become intolerant to being human.  We live in a very hostile world.  This has infiltrated into every aspect of our lives.

The Cult of Perfection

This cult of perfectionism is damaging.  I used to think it was just about our appearance but spending time with other people recently has made me realise that it is in all areas of our life even in our home.  The place where we should feel at our most relaxed our most safe. This is not good for our mental health.  It needs to stop.  In order to go out into such a hostile world we need to be ok with ourselves and building our home to suit ourselves is fundamental to staying sane.  When did having a perfect home become a thing.  How can being on show in your own space, where you’re meant to recharge your batteries be a good thing?  There’s always been an element of keeping up with the Joneses or has there?  I seems to have started to become widespread the last 40-50 years.  It’s heading toward Stepford Wives territory where there is a right and a wrong way to do things.

Not Playing

I’m sorry I’m not willing to play the game.  I am not going to be ‘perfect’ I.e. someone else’s idea of something unobtainable.  I’m going to strive to be the best I can and be happy with my imperfection or should we rephrase this and call it being human?

Why Now?

This last week it just got too much.   Just to put into context where this rant is coming from.  I have been working to set up a new project in France and I have a wonderful team out there that I know and like but……  I know when I start any new project I will face resistance and incomprehension.  Especially from workies.  Aesthetics clash and lead to stress.  They can’t seem to grasp the idea that imperfect doesn’t mean shabby work it just means not overdone, not perfect.

‘Why do you want to keep that scrappy bit of wall, it would look so much better with a perfect skim of plaster over it…. Why don’t you want to buy a new toilet, that one’s old’ etc etc.  At first I used to think it was because it made their job harder, imperial measurements against metric or that they felt that I was asking for shoddy work etc but now I just feel it’s the cult of perfectionism.  It’s the pack of lies we’re being fed that necessitates the need for new, the need for beyond question perfect.

Losing Our Religion

We have lost our way in knowing what is real.  Everything needs to look perfect, plastic, mark free, brand spanking box fresh.  Ignore the fact that we live and breathe and inhabit these spaces.  We need to look and live in a perfect space.  Gone are the days when you used to get your new school bag and scuff it around so it didn’t look brand new – now it’s how designer a handbag looks.  It’s wrong.

We are encouraged to be disposable, to constantly buy new stuff to make us feel better.  The cult of shopping.  This approach plays on our weaknesses and sends us messages that we are not good enough unless we get this or look like that.  Which fashion trends can change at any second and send us into a spin yet again.

Finding Our Way Home

I feel our interiors are fundamental to this.  If we do not reflect ourselves in our safe space where else are we going to?  I have always talked holistically about interiors; how every aspect of our lives interacts with every other.  But having a safe, human, real space is basic.  We seemed to have lost sight of this simple fact.

We need a new approach.  One where we know ourselves and celebrate our selves and celebrate the fact that everyone is different and that is good for our souls.  Fundamentally we are all human but what makes us tick is that we are all individuals.  Let’s celebrate what we need to be and be kinder to ourselves in order to live a sane life.  And find our way home, truly home, where we need to be.