Hi Ethan,
I'm just back from a wonderful adventure through Peru. What a beautiful land, so many things that made us do what we love most: appreciate the small things in life. And still, everything there was immense.
Every time we go somewhere new we end up saying, "hey, this reminds me of Puerto Rico." But in Peru everything is on such a grand scale, and I think that was one of the things that struck us most.
I left inspired by the Incas. Do you remember when Prof. Pérez and Prof. Lizardi used to tell us about the Incas? No? I don't remember either. We can agree the classes were boring. I didn't remember a single thing about the Incas.
But standing on that land, where they walked and built hundreds of years ago, really does make you want to listen. I want to share something with you that inspired me about the Incas, something I'm taking as a lesson for life.
The people who built it worked hard, and it took years to carry their civilization as far as it went. You see, Machu Picchu, as the prime example, is built with extreme precision, with stones that weigh tons and tons. These stones came from faraway mountains to their final place, and it took so much dedication and precision to prepare them and set them down. When you see the scale of the construction and realize it took so many years to build, you realize how dedicated, what perfectionists, they were.
In these modern times they'd say perfection doesn't exist, or that it isn't good to seek perfection. I think those are modern ideas. Over time the human being has grown smarter, but also, I think, lazier and more mediocre. Houses today are not built to the high quality the Incas would have built them. Sure, now there's electricity, water, even heating. What I mean is that in a life so simple, they, I'm certain of it, expected nothing less than perfection.
I'm not saying I want everything to come out perfect now, but I think they've inspired me to make sure that whatever I do, I do it extremely well, or close to perfect. Of all the lovely memories we've made on this trip to Peru, I'm carrying home plenty of inspiration, but this is the main one: always go the extra mile. Because, why not?
For example, I decided to pause the podcast I started about a month ago, to write episodes much, much better than the first three I released.
On the last day of the trip I went to get a facial, and I called abuela María, and she says, "your face is glowing, what did you do?" She is so observant; she has an eagle's eye and pays attention to detail. I think I need to borrow a little of that skill in the search for near-perfection.
Is it good or bad to seek to be close to perfection? Does perfection exist? The circle is perfect, so maybe it does. Should a human seek it? I don't know… I won't let the search for perfection throw me off balance, but I do wonder: if I seek it, do I have to settle for the imperfect? Is perfection relative? Is a crooked circle perfect because that was the intention? If my intention is to make something poorly made, did I make it well? You see? So many questions. But anyway, these Incas have inspired me. Nature, architecture, the flora and the fauna have inspired me.
Soon I'll send the photos to be printed so we'll always have them close. Everything's fine over here; we're back to work with projects to tend to: the podcast, content on YouTube, these letters to you, and a film that came to me during the trip. I'll tell you what it's about later; I think you're going to like it.
Oh, and we also have an idea for a piece of clothing, men's accessories of a sort, that we need to figure out how to start. But anyway, I'll tell you about that later too.
Thank you for reading me, my little creator.
With love,
Ethan
