Her art, in her own mind, was always perfect, the ideal expression of herself. Many would-be artists who strive to create meaningful stories, pictures or music are not always able to approach their creative work with the same sense of fearlessness and abandon.

I didn't understand this until I was in my 60s and started writing this book. I have come to believe that my purpose in life may be to show--through my own story -- how this "disembodiment" happens

Jane Fonda - from her memoir My Life So Far

It is a sad and cautionary tale of living larger than expectations, a tale that could apply equally as well to a captain of industry as it does to haute cuisine. A Michelin three-star recipient, Burgundy chef Bernard Loiseau, owner of La Cote d'Or in Saulier, committed suicide in February 2003.

Journalist Chelminski traces his friend's career while scrutinizing the biographies of the granddaddies of the new French cuisine--the brothers Troisgros, Fernand Point, Paul Bocuse, and others--as well as the origins of Le Guide Michelin. The story is related with an obvious appreciation of Gallic cooking and its creators;

the author helps us understand the art and science of a very demanding, militarylike discipline: "You did it right or you left." ... A warm tribute to a man and his search for perfection. Barbara Jacobs / Booklist

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[She studied literature at Yale.] 

I didn't know how to be in college, I was so singularly obsessed and dedicated. Overserious. Maudlin. I was terribly old when I was younger.

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I am an obsessive-compulsive and a perfectionist. I don't say it with pride.

Jennifer Connelly  /  in Vogue, quoted in The Week, Nov 5 2004

> photo by James Patrick Cooper/Retna
> Connelly won an Academy Award for A Beautiful Mind (2001)

The other end of procrastination - being unable to finish - also has a perfectionist explanation: "I'm just never satisfied. I'm my own harshest critic..."

Do you see what's going on here? A fault is being turned into a virtue.

All these baby boomers grew up with these high expectations of what life should be. Then they woke up in middle age and became unglued.

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"These are utterly brilliant women," he says. "It would be hard to imagine that there would be many others out there that could match their brilliance, and yet they become a mess about achievement.

"They may be chronically late with projects. They might have a grant for a study and be two years behind on rolling it out.

"One such woman had enormous difficulties with doing things on time. She had developed a brilliant thesis. Things had been so easy for her, and she was the kind of person who feared that because it all came too easy, that she really and truly was a fraud. And that is such a toxic thing."

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"She wanted to take risks, but feared risk enormously, because she'd talked herself into the idea that all her lateness proved she really couldn't produce.

"Well, I think the lateness was really that she wanted to perfect things before she let go of them, and she was afraid of criticism, and yet she was, paradoxically, also afraid she really was that brilliant, and then people would expect a repeat performance."

The pursuit of excellence is a personal journey into higher realms of existence, a journey that enriches the self and the world through its bounty. 

It is the crucible that purifies the spirit - the manifestation of life's longing for evolution. 

A cherished goal for only a small portion of the population, excellence is the hard-won prize of those whose zeal and dedication are fueled by the drive to attain perfection, as they envision it. ... 

Chiefly an affliction of the gifted.. perfectionism is not a malady; it is a tool of self-development. ....

Perfectionism is the most misunderstood aspect of the personality of the gifted.

Psychology characterizes it in extremely negative ways, which may be counterproductive to the development of the gifted individual.

There are positive as well as negative aspects of perfectionism, depending on how it is channeled. 

As one gains higher consciousness, perfectionism becomes a catalyst for self-actualization and humanitarian ideals. ....

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Kramer (1988) found greater degrees of perfectionism in gifted than in nongifted teens, and more perfectionistic tendencies in females than in males. 

Baker (1996) also found higher levels of perfectionism in eceptionally gifted ninth grade girls than in girls of average ability. 

Kline and Short (1991) reported increasing perfectionism in gifted girls as they went from elementary to high school.

Linda Kreger Silverman, PhD

Director of the Gifted Development Center -

from her article "Perfectionism: The Crucible of Giftedness"

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Gwen was a died-in-the-wool perfectionist, and she knew it. 

She had put up with remarks about her "pickiness" ever since she could remember. Indeed she was a woman who knew what she wanted and how she wanted it, whether the issue at hand was large or small. 

It was more than a habit, it was a way of life. Over the years, Gwen had acquired a whole set of rules by which she calmed herself, developing a keen awareness of precisely when things were just as they should be. ....

But every day Gwen felt the push-pull of identity conflict. On the one hand, it was perfectly clear that others loved her thoroughness, like the way she left no stone unturned to bring difficult client negotiations to a happy consensus.

Like so many smart, energetic producers with a built-in aesthetic appreciation for the ideal, Gwen was unceasingly badgered by a particular dilemma: honor and be herself, or avoid ridicule and rejection. 

The one thing she knew for sure was that precision was a virtue in her work, but a personal vice elsewhere. 

After thirty-plus years of swinging back and forth on the pendulum of being vs. belonging, she felt no greater confidence in her ability to make sense of it, much less maintain her balance.

Greatness stems from a confluence of perfectionism, talent and drivenness. Even in those of us with somewhat lesser degrees of the innate talent and/or drivenness inherent in the great, perfectionism can call us, if not to greatness, toward a characteristic of perhaps even greater personal and collective importance -- competence.