No two things in nature are exactly the same, yet everything is made from perfect, exact particles. Nature is like some eerie living Minecraft game, where electrons and atoms simulate bricks and build incredible, unique structures. The implication of this is that nothing in nature is identical, so nothing is perfect.

We are brought up with concepts such as perfect shapes, Platonic solids, geometry and perfect numbers, but in nature these don’t exist. If you were to make a set of all the shapes produced in nature, you wouldn’t find any perfect circles (not even the sun), squares or triangles; you’d find lots of squishy shapes, some nearly perfect and some far from perfect.

There aren’t even any perfect numbers. How can you say one plus one equals two when you can’t have two things that are exactly the same? You can say there are two ‘things’ in front of you, but you can’t know their true value unless you measure each one exactly and even exact measurement is an illusion.

The point of these mind games is that everything created in nature is imperfect, yet all around us children are bombarded with ever greater versions of false perfection as the ideal to which they should aspire.

From the moment children are born they are caught in vicious cycle of competition and attainment. The prettiest, the cleverest, the strongest, the fastest, the toughest, the bravest, the most creative. Parents are competitive too. Quick to boast of their offsprings achievements even when outwardly they claim not to be bothered. This doesn’t compromise the deep love parents feel for their children, but even when parents don’t want to play the competition game it is often thrust upon them by society.

Children don’t do themselves any favours either. They taunt and tease each other for every imperfection, the cruel irony being that they aren’t perfect either. At school the pressure increases. From five years old pupils are tested, ranked, rated, assessed, grouped and compared to each other.

They quickly learn that the brightest kids do best, that school and thereby life, requires things they don’t have. And every day they are reminded of that. In social circles, children learn there are popular children; the prettiest the funniest, the hardest, the coolest, the best dressed, the richest.

Children are then saturated with Photoshopped images and notions of perfection. TV stars, celebrities and sports people ooze good looks and tales of overcoming adversity to enjoy the amazing success they have.

Teachers teach children they must work hard, strive and endure if they want to be successful like these false notions. Everywhere they look children see images of perfection and the highest ideals are held up as normal.

And failure? Failure is portrayed as a pitiful warning to all of the dangers of not attaining, of not achieving. Young people can’t simply exist happily and contentedly within a humble framework, there is silent pressure to strive for more, to be compared against peers to have climbed higher, achieved more.

Maybe you think I exaggerate. Maybe I do. But ask yourself; what would the barometer of what I’ve said be? How would a sickness like this manifest itself? In what way would it show itself to us?

Wouldn’t there be an epidemic of unhappiness amongst children? A rise in #mentalhealth issues? Wouldn’t there be so many more children needing support, more reports of self-harm, hospitalisation and medical treatment for alcohol and substance abuse among young people?