Nina was chosen as the new lead to replace current star Beth MacIntyre as the Swan Queen. The lead must maintain an adequate portrayal of both the White and Black Swans. However, the ballet director, Thomas Leroy, claimed that her rigid technique makes her an ideal casting for the White Swan, but opined that she lacks the passion of the darkly sensual Black Swan. She was such a perfectionist that Thomas had to remind her to simply lose herself in the Black Swan role.
Eventually, she did. As she indulged herself into the role, she saw the dark side of herself and gradually experienced hallucinations. During the final performance, she received an outstanding ovation for her role in the Black Swan. But it was all too late. She has lost too much of herself in her strive towards perfectionism such that there was no turning back.
How many of us strive for perfectionism? I, for one, has given up the fight to be perfect. To make an effort is already a step in the correct direction; to make many flawless efforts is too many steps in an idealistic world. Yet we strive to live ideally - in a world of 2 opposites, the white and the black. With the blacks amidst the whites, do we simply accept it or strive to be ideal in both? Yet to strive to be ideal in both, one has to learn to relax in order to be perfect - what a paradox the world has become.
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