Perfection is the key to insanity, my insanity mainly.
Everyone knows at least one perfectionist. They are the ones straightening their pencils, ironing their underwear, and scrubbing the toilet with a toothbrush. The rest of us believe that these tasks are unnecessary, that the world will go on if our underwear are wrinkled, it’s not like the world can see them anyway. However, for those of us living in Japan, the perfectionist ideology is more than just a case of that pencil pusher sitting over there, instead it’s a deeply rooted aspect of Japanese culture. Why does one apple cost 158yen ($1.70) in my local store? It’s because that apple is perfect. Just look at it. It’s bigger than my hand, perfectly round, and not a mark on it. Mother Nature herself could not have carved a more faultless specimen. Add to that the individual wrapping and methodical placement on the shelves, and presto. Who wouldn’t consider this the cream of the crop? But, it’s not just this apple, it’s this whole box of apples, this entire store’s ap