Modeling Perfection

I occasionally built model tanks and planes when I was boy. I wasn’t very good at it. Getting the turret on just right so it would actually swivel, or securing the cockpit glass without smearing it with glue required a meticulous patience of which it appeared I had only a finite amount. There was something about those models that begged for seamless perfection; ideally, when you looked at it, you were unaware it was just a plastic model. If you did it right, it would seem as if an actual German Panzer had been shrunken to one-twentieth its size and was now perched on your bookcase.

I opened each new box believing this would be the one I’d assemble perfectly. I was a little older, my hand a little steadier, and I’d learned from past mistakes. I vowed to go as slowly as I needed to this time. If I didn’t understand the instructions at first glance, I’d read them again; if the pieces were tiny, I’d use a toothpick to apply the glue. There was no need to rush. I would work with a watchmaker’s focus, with an adult’s relationship to time.

Time may have been an unwitting accomplice in my predictable disappointment. I always wanted to hurry up and to get to the good part, which would be looking at my perfect little tank. The good part really wasn’t attaching a ring the size of thumbtack to the hull. Before long, I started craving the finished product, and then my hand would slip, and now a piece as askew, and the glue had dried, and it would never be perfect. Perfection has no degrees. Once I’d lost that, I might as well just finish it up as quickly as I could.

The last one I made didn’t look that bad. With a little paint you could cover the bubbles of dried glue, and from a distance you might not notice the periscope was crooked. It sat on my desk for a time, a little monument to what almost was. My brother John was the one who’d gotten his hands on some firecrackers. You could just light them off, or you could blow something up. We knew which we preferred.

I was happy to offer up my tank. It had brought me no real pleasure since I’d finished it. We set in on the floor in our unfinished basement, inserted two firecrackers strategically, lit them simultaneously, and jumped away. The live fuses burned down, racing along toward their explosive end, and John and I stood by in crackling anticipation. When they blew, for one bright, smoky flash of a moment, it was as if a movie had come to life in in our basement—the sudden, violent bang, the wheels and treads and armor blasting apart, the complete and perfect destruction of what had just been. We cheered our success, our only wish that I had built more.

If you like the ideas and perspectives expressed here, feel free to contact me about individual coaching and group workshops.

Fearless Writing: How to Create Boldly and Write With Confidence.
You can find William at: williamkenower.com