[In-person] Curiosity Café: Perfectionism and the Good Life

What it means to live life well has been a topic of debate for millennia. One prominent theory, perfectionism (not to be confused with being a perfectionist, the personality trait), holds that living well consists in developing and exercising our essential human capabilities, whatever those are. In other words, you’re living a good life when you’re being the best person you can be. We can think of ‘essential human capabilities’ as things that make us the sort of beings we are. For example, we might think of ‘appreciation of beauty’ as an essential human capability that we wouldn’t think a cat or chair would be capable of or in need of.

Perfectionism isn’t just an abstract philosophical idea, it has also influenced our personal lives, popular culture, and even international governance. Do you ever feel pressure to ‘live life to the fullest’? Have you come across the phrase ‘being the best version of myself’? Or noticed how initiatives like the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals set out a universal list of goods, such as good health, quality education, and gender equality? These are just a few examples of how perfectionism, as a theory of what constitutes ‘a good life,’ has shaped our lives. We’ll discuss questions such as:

1. What kinds of things are ‘essential human capabilities’? Are there any?
2. Are there any negative things, like failure, pain, grief that could also make a life go better?
3. Do we buy that there is a universal definition of a good life?
4. Can perfectionism ideals or policies be universalized?

Join us on September 23rd for a collaborative discussion with returning moderator Kenneth Boyd and our own Sofia Panasiuk. Together, we’ll explore what kinds of things might belong on the list of perfectionist goods, whether a universal definition of a good life is possible, and what the proliferation of ‘perfectionism’ means for us in everyday life.

Space is limited! Please obtain a “Pay-What-You-Can” ticket from Curiosity Café at this link (click here) to attend this event. You need a ticket to be admitted. See the above link for more info about tickets and other options including a limited number of free tickets. Come and hang out with us, grab food, and read through our handout from 6-6:30pm. Our structured discussion will run from 6:30-8:30pm with a 10 minute break in the middle.

Hope to see you there!

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This event is brought to you by Being and Becoming, a Toronto based non-profit. We aim to create community around exploring everyday concepts and experiences so that we may live more intentional, thoughtful, and meaningful lives. We use philosophy as a tool with which we can come to a richer understanding of the world around us.

By offering activities, spaces, and other opportunities for conversation and co-exploration, we hope to enable the meeting and fusion of individuals and their ideas. Everyone is welcome, regardless of background: indeed, we believe the journey is best undertaken alongside explorers from a variety of disciplines, cultures, backgrounds, and experiences.

Find out more about Being and Becoming here.

About the Curiosity Café Series:

For those of you who haven’t had the opportunity to join us at our Curiosity Cafés and are wondering what they’re all about: every two weeks, we invite members of our community to come out to the Madison Avenue Pub to engage in a collaborative exploration of our chosen topic. Through these events, we aim to build our community of people who like to think deeply about life’s big questions, and provide each other with some philosophical tools to dig deeper into whatever it is we are most curious about.