PERF

In this philosophical work, an author reflects on her struggles with perfectionism and the meaning of its societal expression.

Cullen aspires to be a “real writer”—but is stymied by relentless perfectionism, the unmerciful tyranny of “unrealistic expectations.” Her penchant for the perfect extends to every sphere of life—she’s peculiarly competitive when giving Christmas presents—but is particularly destructive when it comes to her creative work, which is often stifled by paralysis. The perfectionist, she explains with notable lucidity, lives precariously perched between the fear of failure and the threat of an incapacitating fatigue: “It’s exhausting to live in that failure-adverse mentality in a rolling loop of self-criticism. There’s something guiding everything I do every day, a slight nag that tells me if I don’t, everything could fail. If I don’t write or exercise or read or journal, my dream outruns me. Someone else takes the lead.” The author situates the phenomenon of perfectionism within contemporary societal demands—since it is a “cultural cornerstone” for millennials, it is partly learned by “cultural osmosis.” She lays a measure of blame for her “ingested trauma and threat of constant productivity” on the “transactional conformity” demanded by capitalism, a familiar analysis. Nonetheless, her diagnosis of perfectionism is dotted with more sparkling reflections, especially about the acceptance of conformity that is often at the heart of it, the desperate need to be recognized by the thoroughly conventional standards propagated by one’s peers: “We seek out numbers to score our worth.”

Cullen is at her best when delving into the rippling contours of popular culture, surveying its terrain for signs and symptoms of perfectionism. Perfectionism, she avers, can radiate from a deeply felt sense of one’s own inferiority and can express itself as the “recklessly mean” derision of others—she furnishes an astute accounting of this within the feverish cosmos of social media. In addition, she writes sensitively about the variability of perfectionism—the manner in which one makes infinitely unyielding demands of oneself but shows gentle leniency to others: “It’s this disconnect in what we can receive and give that makes perfectionism so scary. We allow others the gentle space of being ‘enough’ that we don’t give ourselves. We assume our actions risk other people’s good-favored acceptance, even for people we love.” Yet while the author acknowledges the conformism of contemporary perfectionism and situates the tendency within a capitalist society’s structures, she doesn’t adequately plumb what precisely perfectmeans other than to point out it is subject to “evolving standards.” At one point, Cullen confusedly mentions the ideal of an “optimistic apex where creativity flows into undisturbed beauty,” but her discussions usually revolve around the thoughtless devotion to the conventional standards of success culminating in recognition. It is telling that she ascribes greatness to the likes of Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish, the latter to whom she implausibly attributes a “a singular view of the world that taps into the mirrored darkness in the world around her.” In other words, Cullen’s understanding of perfectionism seems tethered to a lack of intellectual independence and a collective mediocrity. Her disappointing conclusion is that her way out will only be discovered once she has “given up on seeing life as a race,” a cliché offered as an insight.

An intriguing but uneven analysis of perfectionism.