Imperfect

disarming caricatures

the pine's optimism & optimization.txt has me thinking that options like optimism and optimization have been widely caricatured into opponents. Even though there's room for nuance, distilling them to less extreme meanings can be tough to socialize.

For optimism, the "best to come" does not need to warrant self-guilt and blindly ignoring risks. It can represent a healthy dose of hope that accepts circumstances like possibility and feasibility. It can be lightly held instead of crushed by a clenched fist.

For optimization, the "best to be had" does not need to mean perfection, infallibility, nor superiority. It can be performed in pursuit of greatness without having to reach it. It can represent reasonable improvement instead of a superhuman feat.

Both processes can dance below the best extremes. For many journeys in life, it's not even about reaching the asymptote, but seeing how far we can push the boundary. Pushing out our own previous boundaries counts too.

Even though language is dynamic, certain words can become rooted in definitions that are less than ideal. One fun part of language change is the rise of novel, less loaded words. I explore that with "satisficing", described as choosing the first good enough option, in numbers game:

As Tala mentions in you are not an optimization problem, we can't forget what makes us human. We can employ strategies like satisficing, imperfection, and accepting our fallibility to overcome the pitfalls of optimization. Let's replace the floor functions lowering ourselves with ceiling functions lifting ourselves up, if not exponentiation launching us toward our dreams.

I think "good enough" distills "best" enough to work with what life throws at us. When push comes to shove, something good enough compared to other options requires much less thinking than grasping for what may never appear. Changing up diction this way is a play for momentum too. Repeating what's good enough over time can get you there safe and sound. Setting yourself back after each dashed moment of perfection can lead to much burnout.

Optimistic satisficing may help lift the undue weight of optimization off your shoulders. As someone whose blog's namesake is an antonym to perfection, sometimes "good enough" is thankfully the bar I both seek and meet.

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