Flaws make beauty. Anyone can draw a perfect tree. It happens to look like a lollipop. However, with a crack in the bark, a wilted leaf, a hole from a worm, a knot in the wood, the tree takes on character and depth.
Perfection is often assumed to be without flaws. Yet, a flawless picture or song or personality is utterly boring and probably without merit, because art and life are found in the flaws, the imperfections. Perhaps it is the flaws that make something perfect. Even personal flaws.
Flaws can be frightening, to both the person that wears them and the person that sees. Yet, the greatest figures in history have been flawed men and women. Every single one. They were great despite of (and sometimes because of) their flaws.
People sometimes feels that their flaws are unique to them and must be secreted away. This is backwards. One should use the flaw, correct it, learn from it, be inspired by it; not have the flaw drive one’s behavior.
A perfect person does not exist, but flawed people do. They are often very much worth knowing. They understand, regardless of their age or anything else, that there is still more to learn and grow, that there is more to the journey. Flaws are motivation to grow, points of distinction that makes one an individual. And to grow means connecting with others, even if just meeting them through the pages of a book.
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