A few years ago I was in Florence and bought a leather bag in the market. I use it now to pack around my work life. And the more I use it, the more I like it because it’s starting to get beaten up a little. Which gets me thinking about why we value perfection in some things but flaws in others.
Why is it that what we might consider damage in one thing we consider character in another? The scars and scuffs and other signs of wear on that leather bag add to its sense of value in my eyes, but a scratch on the iPad I carry in it detracts from its value. We seem to arbitrarily desire either precision or flaws.
It’s a tension within us. In a modern context, you see it in the tension between youth and experience. Between analog and digital. Between plans and freedoms. Between certainty and whimsy. Between a suit and jeans. Between a page and a screen, a pen and a pixel.
It collides in places like leadership, where we increasingly talk about “authenticity” while also demanding accountability. Do we want our leaders and the organizations they lead to be perfect or human? We can’t have both. So let’s stop pretending we can. The richness of humanity is in the scars and the flaws and uniqueness. We’d do well to value that more - and understand it more if we want to have meaningful connections.
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