A ceaseless quest for perfection may begin as an amusing quirk, but it gets frustrating and tiring when you start applying that to everything you do. It consumes you and governs your life. You throw away a humongous bowl of batter, that you had spent an hour mixing because it doesn't taste the way you want it to; you throw away iced butterflies and fondant shapes because in your eyes they look ugly, and you couldn't possibly have the heart to give them to anyone. You look in the mirror and truly despise that ugly thing that stares dolefully back at you.

"And why does it keep spewing that way?
I mean, you know, I mean..."

"I know exactly what you mean," I said,
Eyeing the blond highlights in your black hair
And your blue lenses the shadow of a foreign sky.
"It spews continually if only to ruffle
its own reflection in the water; such reminders
will only scare a creature so eager to reinvent itself."

-Sa'at, Alfian, 1998 "The Merlion", One Fierce Hour, p. 22