On the Fallacy of Perfectionism.

At any point in the process of any methodical Act, one is tempted away from an Idealised Goal to deviate. This can be observed in Inquiry; one is tempted to stop a given train of thought entirely in order to re-examine the matter. This comes at a risk; one may never capture again the original train of thought. Yet is the motive itself such a loss? No. To take the risk involves a courage that attempted self-destruction does not.
The temptation towards Deviation is the emergence of the New; one is flooded with new variables for Consideration. This cannot be stopped; one cannot step in the same river twice.
One needs always to withhold this in order to attain 'perfection'.
Yet perfection is always something one has all ready done before, and it is impossible to have a successful repetition.
The only motive for such a perfectionism would be this conviction: That the first time it was done this way it was done poorly. This was because the first time one 'deviates', such as in the case of a person who tries to renounce Thought part-way through an Inquiry. In short, it was Imperfect then, but it sets the standard for what is Perfect now. Yet it will never truly be Perfect because what one imagines to be Perfect has all ready happened and therefore cannot be repeated.

Failure and Success are in many ways Cognitively Arbitrary.
In the process of Inquiry, for instance, to forego one line of thought is simply to enable another. This may be inevitable. Everything is change, and when one Being Reveals itself to us it Conceals another. We think, to use now a Wattsian rather than a Heideggerean image, in waves. We cannot think in words without taking pauses to 'gather our thoughts'. During one of these pauses, one may arbitrarily vow to disavow oneself of all Intellect. Yet this decision is not binding. We are always Two people: The Present and the Future, and at any moment the Future may annihilate the Present.
Here is a potentially frustrating riddle: If I begin a train of Thought and partway through I am tempted to sabotage myself and to disavow all thought, but I conclude the thought in spite of this and forego my disavowal, was the Inquiry a failure? It seems not.

The disavowal itself was futile, if a disavowal of this kind aims at an Absolute; To disavow Thought one must make impossible any success for Thought in the Future. Yet my status in the Future as a free agent ungoverned by the Past renders this futile. The disavowal was therefore Arbitrary entirely. Not only could nothing be gained by it but nothing could be lost by it; the time spent not thinking might have been no longer and no practically different than the Necessary Pause which serves Thought.

What motive might there be to renounce Thought? Forgetfulness.
Truth is the imaginary Limit that Inquiry never reaches. We approach it like a horizon; it is as illusory as Perfection. We try to Leap into it when we get close, at the peak of Reasoning and Thought.
But at the moment we stop Thinking we find nothing so to Leap into so Reassuring as what was there while we were thinking, for Thought created it.

In light of all of this, the Perfectionism and anti-intellectualism of Fundamentalism is understood (to be Absurd).

dm.A.A.