Is anything ever optimal?

I was thinking about something being ultimately optimal (ultimate optimalbility?) in light of the realization that there will always be something that will diminish something else. I am not a pessimistic person, but I think that embracing the fact that we will never find an experience or condition on this planet, in this life, that ultimately optimal may help my perspective somewhat.

I was dry-fitting some components in my mind for a CO2 reactor for our home aquarium and thought I had come up with the optimal design. Well, the optimal design for the equipment I have anyway. I quickly realized that the tube I was looking to use is just a tad too thin to hang on its own and I would need to adhere it to the piece it needs to connect to on the power head I was planning on using. Then I thought of a few other things that would make it better...but then I realized that I just needed to make it work with what I have.

So there it is. I will be making a reactor that will be better than the diffuser I have now (by a wide margin) but will not be optimal. And there is no way that, with any amount of effort, it will be ultimately optimal. Not this side of the New Earth anyway.

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