Perfectionism: A High Computational Overhead
As a chronic perfectionist, L has finally picked up the pen to write this article. The process itself was nothing short of a “herculean task.”
Perfectionism, at its core, is a high computational overhead.
This overhead stems from overly precise anticipation—every potential gain or loss, every critique, and every dual-sided nuance is factored into the calculation. As a result, before a single command can be executed, the system “crashes” under the weight of excessive logical auditing.
- I would run endless internal simulations, hesitating over a 30 RMB monthly server fee.
- I could spend a whole month tinkering with Vercel and Astro frameworks for the “perfect” layout, yet never commit a single word to the page.
- Even skipping a meaningless class required calculating consequences, value, and seat environments, only to end up in a “low-performance drain” called anxiety once inside the library.
I’ve gradually realized that perfectionism is, fundamentally, an unwillingness to accept the roughness and uncontrollability of the world.
L is accustomed to being cautious and soft-spoken because every voiced opinion must first pass through a rigorous, multi-layered internal audit. He found himself stuck in a state of “high-intensity input” with almost zero “output.”
He once asked himself: Is this “accumulating strength for a grand debut”? But why does this “accumulation” take so long that it breeds nothing but anxiety?
From the initial spark of an idea, to debating between YouTube or a self-built website, to the final deployment—it took a full month just to produce these first few words.
Why do we get trapped in perfectionism?
Perhaps it’s because we’ve been living inside an “ideal model.” But reality is not a sandbox running in an ideal state; it is full of noise, packet loss, and uncontrollable randomness. I once stubbornly believed that strength determined everything, only to realize that luck, opportunity, and even a reckless impulse are all vital system variables.
The journey from realizing this to internalizing it and reconstructing a worldview is long and painful. Yet the logic is simple: Perfectionism is a refusal to embrace the world’s grit and unpredictability.
The “system crash” finally began to ease when he started accepting this roughness and facing his own unpolished thoughts.
Despite the struggle, here is the first entry—a beginning that no longer strives for “zero errors.”