4. Planet Perfect

Dearest Family and Friends,

The French have a proverb: “No man is a hero to his valet.” 

Or, I might add, to his grandchildren.

It wasn’t always that way with my grandchildren, and I brought about my own downfall. I can’t blame Marcia, which is unfortunate because one of the purposes of having a wife is to take the rap for things she hasn’t done. Yet my undoing was so clearly of my own making that there is nothing to be gained by pretending otherwise. 

This story starts four years ago when my twin grandchildren, Vivian and Irene, were three years old and just starting to walk with confidence. I stared directly into their clear azure eyes and told them in all seriousness that unlike the other people in their lives, I was perfect — that I knew everything and made no mistakes. I don’t know why I conjured this story, a claim that from the very onset contained the kernel of its own collapse. Perhaps I wanted to teach my grandchildren a life lesson about human frailty. Or maybe I wanted to see how long I could keep up the ruse. Perhaps you, my reader, have some sense why I would say such a thing. 

As the twins grew older they sought more details about my peculiar capabilities and how I came to possess them. I obliged, telling them that GrandPaul (my grandparent name) was actually born on Planet Perfect, which is a secret world on the other side of the sun, hidden from earth, and that everyone who lives on Planet Perfect is perfect just like me. I told them that because they were my grandchildren, they had inherited some of my perfection and that each of them was one quarter perfect. 

Three year olds are so busy absorbing new information they don’t spend a lot of time asking themselves whether or not something is true. My perfection became but one more fact in their expanding minds, like the fact that dogs are warm to the touch or that sisters must take three big bites of every food on their plate before ice cream will happen. My daughter Clara told me that one evening, after a question arose at the dinner table that neither parent could answer, Vivian said: “Ask GrandPaul. He knows. He’s perfect.”

After the twins’ cousin Miles was born and learned to talk, Vivian and Irene informed him matter of factly that GrandPaul was from Planet Perfect and that everyone on Planet Perfect was all knowing and without defect. Miles nodded his head and went about the rest of his day. And when the twins’ younger brother Jonah started to talk, he, too, learned that his grandfather was perfect. 

Being perfect turned out to be a great deal of fun. I became the final authority in any family dispute. My wife and daughters might roll their eyes or bang the butt of their palm against their forehead in disbelief, but my grandchildren hung on my every utterance, nodding in concurrence. If Marcia dropped a spoon or spilled water while setting the table, Miles chimed in dismissively, “GrandPaul would never do that, because he is perfect.”

Oh, that my tale might end here at this happy juncture! Yet as surely as the sun rises to the east, my fiction started to break down as my grandchildren’s model of the world grew deeper and more certain. Why didn’t Planet Perfect appear in the diagram of the Solar System on her classroom wall, Irene wanted to know. And if GrandPaul was perfect, why did he take a wrong turn driving to the zoo, asked Jonah. Doubts sprung forth like stubborn weeds, growing between the stones of my carefully crafted edifice.

I held on as long as I could. “GrandPaul chooses to make wrong turns every so often,” I told Jonah, “because people from Planet Perfect are perfectly kind and we don’t want humans on earth to feel upset after they make a mistake. So GrandPaul pretends to make mistakes too.” 

Jonah seemed only half-convinced. 

The twins finally called me out on a sunny Sunday morning when Marcia and I were babysitting while their parents took a hike. They had consulted one another and come to the same conclusion. “GrandPaul,” they announced in unison, “you are NOT perfect! No one is perfect.” A few months later, Miles buried any residual doubt. We were buying supermarket sandwiches one evening in March, to eat in a park by the bay while watching a lunar occultation — Mars passing behind the moon. As the last sandwich rolled past on the conveyor belt, Miles looked directly at me with his dark brown eyes and said in all seriousness, “GrandPaul, not only are you not perfect. Even your soul is imperfect.” Ouch. Even my soul? My run as a perfect being had come to its end. Or so I thought.

The Italians have a proverb: “The Perfect is the Enemy of the Good.” Voltaire immortalized the saying in 1770 — he knew the Italians were on to something. Contemporary researchers report that "maximizers" who strive to make perfect choices after considering all available options are generally less happy than “satisficers” who settle for a “good enough” solution that meets their basic requirements. Maximizers achieve better outcomes, but they work harder to make decisions, are more likely to be depressed, and frequently suffer from rumination and regret. Satisficers, in contrast, are content and move on. What is the lesson here? Maybe being perfect isn’t so perfect after all.

And there’s more: There are whole groups of problems that researchers call “intractable” — problems that can’t be solved with any algorithm. For example, finding the shortest route that visits a large number of cities once each, and then returns to the city of origin. There are too many possibilities to try them all, one by one, even with the fastest computers. But it turns out there are methods for coming close to the best answer by relaxing some constraints, although the best solution can’t be determined in any reasonable amount of time. Forget about perfection, the engineers tell us. Sometimes, good enough is all we can hope for. 

Just as I was coming to terms with my imperfection and second-rate soul, I was surprised by an extraordinary development: My grandchildren chose to keep our game going. Why, I do not know. Was it out of habit? Did they enjoy matching wits with me, or secretly yearn for a perfect protector in their lives? Perhaps you, my reader, have some sense why they would want such a thing.

Today, as I write, I am back up on my pedestal. But only through my grandchildren’s grace. They acknowledge my perfection, in jest, and delight in hearing me defend myself in the face of my obvious frailties. “Tell me, GrandPaul, why do people from Planet Perfect forget to pack towels when they take their grandchildren to the pool?”

Could life be any more perfect?

— Paul

P.S. — Ugh!  It’s been five months since my previous blog entry. Sorry about that. I became heavily involved in my neighborhood association — too heavily —  and I volunteer during tax season to help people file returns. I will try to pick up my writing pace. 

The attached photo shows a Ruth Asawa wire sculpture exhibited last month in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). The sculpture doesn’t have anything to do with my writing, but I like to include photos.