Why I hate the word "perfection"

Over the last one year, I have experienced so many variations of "perfectionism" as an attitude that I am quite literally traumatised by it.

From Product Managers, who think every silly edge case that comes to their mind must be fixed before they sign off a work, to bystanders who look at a graphic and go "it's not good enough" until it excites them to look at it, or recruiters who wouldn't consider you, until your work is completely out of whack exceptionally great and spotlessly perfect.

Perfect Circles. Perfect Squares. Perfect Grids. Perfect Grammar. Perfectly Normal. I am tired of this shit. People get mad at Starbucks barristas who spell their name wrong!?! I still laugh about and remiss the days when sometimes they'd call me "Redit" or "Vivid". Life doesn't have to be that mechanical that we forget what human error looks like.

Nature is not perfect. It's imperfect. Like a Persian Rug, hand made and valuable for its imperfections. We must embrace the world's imperfections and learn to live with them. This is what makes us human and not robots.

Go small and build communities

Philz is about to be sold to a private equity firm and this is not a one-off occurance. All popular local-coffee roasters from SF in the last two decades that raised a bunch of money, have met a similar fate. They were great, they became popular, they grew, they raised money and then couldn't grow enough so are now being sold to bigger more evil companies.

This is what I call the indie to medium sized sell-out arc. It doesn't just happen in the world of coffee, it happens everywhere there are indies. Indie software comes to mind, which has the same arc. Food is the other obvious one.


To me the problem exists with the notion of infinite growth. This very American idea of "Go Big or Go Home". What if that's not the right approach. Not everything needs to keep growing to the point where it either controls everything or sells out to someone else who does. I also hate this phrase because it's often used as a way to tell me how my own work as an indie is insignificant and will never be as big as the likes of big players. So what do we do to fight the demon of "Go Big or Go Home"?

We "Go Small and Build Communities". What does that mean. Here's my proposition:

Minimalism is anything but simple

Was at a bookstore today, and saw the book covers of some "Penguin Archive" books. They're supposed to be minimalist text based covers with just two colours (white and red) and a single font. Yet, these covers convey so much information.

Minimalism is anything but simple. These are minimalist covers for sure. Are they simple? Definitely not. Which makes me wonder about What exactly is minimalism. Is it the "absence of clutter? or the presence of only what's essential" (I'm Referencing Jony Ive's views on simplicity here). I think it's the latter.

The City of Berkeley has a lot of different trash cans

My afternoon hobby today? Spot all the different kinds of trash bins installed in Berkeley. Very interesting to see all the different styles they've gone through. Arranging them in what I think is the descending order of recency (oldest first).

Resilience Lessons

Was on a walk this evening and stumbled across this plaque that sits right in front of my old Applied Resilience classroom, the Cal Memorial Stadium (Yes, that class used to take place in one of the small rooms on the ground floor of the stadium).

What a great quote to be in front of a class that's literally trying to teach resilience. A great reminder for me too. Sadly the class is no longer going to happen in the stadium, but I feel this plaque and the stadium were the spirit of that class. What's a better reminder than sports that failure is inevitable, and so is the redemption that follows that.

Also, reminded me of my dad, he was a very resilient person; saw and overcame many failures in his lifetime, and sometimes it'd be his words of encouragement that would be enough for me to overcome my own struggles. Miss him every day.

Almost Golden Hour

I just love how the light is selectively illuminating parts of the building. Perks of being near a hill, I think these were the last remnants of sunlight before the sunset. Almost after Golden Hour I want to say.

The Berkeley clock has been fixed

A few days ago, I discovered that the UC Berkeley Campanile clock on one of the faces of the tower was broken. Happy to report that as of this week the clock's been fixed. I walk by the campanile almost every day, and it's so fascinating to see that it took them this long to see the broken clock and fix it.

July 7, 2025: The clock facing the North Gate shows incorrect time.

July 18, 2025: The clock is now showing the correct time.