:: Edgeliving: Master Jim and slave marsha ::

:: Wednesday, March 10, 2004 ::

Thanks for Your Patience

Thanks to all the readers of this blog for your patience as Master Jim and i didn't post for quite some time. As you know, we were working on South Plains Leatherfest -- and that just made posting here an impossibility.

Hopefully, we'll be back on a more regular schedule of posting now.

--slave marsha

:: 2:20 PM [+] ::
...

The Pursuit of Perfection

As a slave, i want to be perfect. i want my service to be flawless, all the time, every time. i want to anticipate Master Jim’s needs and desires and always make them appear exactly at the right time and place.

And i know that will never happen in this lifetime.

As slaves, we live in a strange world. Perfection is the goal – but we know it is unattainable. Yet we have to keep trying to achieve it. Does that sound futile to you? Or crazy? Let me try to explain why I don’t view it as either one.

First of all, I think we have to try to understand what we mean by “perfection.”

Perfection isn’t a static, never changing concept when you’re in a Master/slave relationship. In fact, what constitutes “perfect service” may change quite often – what is today’s perfect service may be tomorrow’s grave error. Today your Owner loves sushi, and it would be perfect to anticipate that he/she would like some for dinner. Tomorrow, after a bout with a bad batch of tuna, bringing your Owner a heaping helping of raw fish might get you, at the very least, a stern look. (Or a quick trip to clean the bathroom – again.)

Nor is perfection in your service something that is always completely within your control. No matter how experienced or how well trained you may be, much of your service will depend on things not wholly within your control – the availability of the desired fresh flowers for the table, your physical condition, whether someone bumps you just as you are pouring that drink, and on and on and on.

And of course, who’s to say what is perfect? me? i don’t think so. It’s up to Master Jim to decide whether my service is perfect. Perfect should be what pleases Him. What if it pleases Him to need to correct me from time to time, because that reinforces His identity as a Master? Does that mean imperfection can be perfection?

Whatever it means, i want to be perfect. More to the point, whatever perfection may be, Master Jim still expects me to try to attain it.

Now, this is where it gets really hard. How do we as slaves accept that we will never be perfect, all the while continuing to strive for perfection? How do we do it and not lose heart?

i’m not sure I have a “perfect” answer to this. But when i start to despair that I will never be perfect, i think about something Master Jim gave me. It’s a beautiful Japanese print, a drawing of Mount Fuji. Inscribed at the bottom of the print are the words, “Climbing the mountain… an inch at a time.”

That’s what i’m doing in my search for perfection – climbing the mountain an inch at a time. And sometimes, i become so intent, so focused on the inch in front of me, i forget to look up and around me and see how far i’ve come up the mountain. i may never reach the top… but i can get to places with a glorious view, nevertheless.

And then, i keep climbing. Because when it comes to being perfect, it really is all about the journey, and not the destination.

--slave marsha

:: 2:18 PM [+] ::
...