Rousseau's Notion of Perfectibility as a Motivator In Our Own Lives

        When I was in first grade, I begged my parents to let me play the violin. They thought it would just be another phase, like when I begged them to let me get a skateboard when my brother got one, and subsequently stopped begging rather quickly when he came home with a new bleeding limb daily. However, I never let up. And finally, a couple months later, I got my first minuscule violin. Though at the beginning I wouldn’t put it down, the excitement of the new instrument soon wore off and it became the classic case of parents nagging their kids to practice their instrument. There was, however, something that has never got old about playing, and this is where Rousseau comes in. 
You see, if I could have learned everything there was to know about the violin as a little

first grader, I would have had no reason to keep playing. It was the fact that I had to constantly strive to improve my technique, work on my rhythm or my bow arm, get a piece ready for an audition or performance, that have kept me playing for so long. It is the imperfection that drives me to keep taking lessons do my best to understand everything I can about the instrument. I think Rousseau was really onto something with his notion of perfectibility.
Rousseau believed that man was not perfect, but he could strive to perfect himself. “. . . human understanding owes much to the Passions which, as is commonly admitted, also owe much to it. It is by their activity that our reason perfects itself; we seek to know only because we desire to enjoy. . . “ (Rousseau 149). I think he meant that dedication to learning and knowledge would make for the most fulfilling life. Though there were many other, more negative, aspects of Rousseau’s second discorse, I found this one to be the most applicable, though perhaps that is just the optimist in me. Whether it is for a violin performance or for any other aspect in your life, if you have the opportunity to strive for perfection, guaranteed you will be more satisfied with the outcome than if you had stood idly by without making the effort for greatness.