Saturday 14 September 2013

Mediocrity/Indifference as Identity

I have not written anything for a long time. But not as long as I did not have a blog entry, I write a lot more that this space reflects. But yet again I have been moved into writing about something that is of the nature of this space.

When I say mediocrity in this piece, I mean it as a state of mind of indifference. Everyone is average or below average is many aspects of their life, knowledge, physical prowess, abilities, possessions, experiences, etc. That is not what I mean by mediocrity. In my experience and understanding, the normal state of human mind is of constant curiosity and amazement. Boredom is when someone does not get that. A normal (as opposed to mediocre or base person) gets excited when their curiosity is piqued, gets enjoyment out of that, asks questions, thinks, wonders and often gets amazed. So then a mediocre person is someone who wears boredom as if it was in fashion. They may be on top of curve for some things but since they are not going anywhere else, they turn mediocre in attitude. As Aristotle put it in logical statement, I paraphrase the original translation, we are what we do: excellence then is not an event but a habit. And it is in this sense that I use the word mediocre and mediocrity, and find it a bad thing that should be actively avoided.


I arrived in Santa Cruz, CA on 1st Sept. When I took my bus ride from Pacific Metro station to UCSC campus, one of the first things I noticed was that very soon, I was going up a hill. And my immediate reaction was that it is going to be a killer to run this route. I wondered what the elevation of this hill from the mean-sea-level (MSL) is.

Santa Cruz has a long W. Cliff Dr. that looks over the ocean, about 15-20 m high. I am going to run from the very top of this hill, where I am going to live, to the W. Cliff Drive. When I had the next opportunity to speak with someone who seemed like they have been here for some time, I asked them about the MSL.

Of the 8 or so people I spoke with, most had the reaction, "Oh! that is a good question, I never thought about that. If I had to guess... um... sorry I have no idea. But if you find out let me know, that is something I would like to know." Refreshing honesty and sincere curiosity was the mark of almost everyone except this one dude. And I mean dude. He works at the UCSC book store, the cash counter.

When I asked him about what he thinks the elevation of this place is, he said, "Jeez, I wouldn't know, man. I wouldn't even know how far the sea is. That is the kind of guy I am." To which I felt like saying that I had been there only 4 hours, and even I knew it is ~5 miles by the shortest route (it's actually 4.2), the route that he very likely takes everyday to work here.

The fat, pink, blond woman who works the counter at the other end was a normal curious smart person, who had a normal curious reaction to my question. I do not think it is that Mr. Dude was just bored of life because of what he does for a living or what his education level is. I think it is a conscious decision, and I say this because I have come across a lot of people like Mr. Dude who have chosen mediocrity as an identity. None of them confined by gender, age, economic class, ethnicity, nationality, color of hair, eyes or any other classification. If anything, mediocrity and the active decision to identify as mediocre is a great common across all of these divides.

The others who moved me with brazen identity as mediocre, were my unnamed ex-students from the school I used to teach in. In this case, their behavior was a shock, because even a year ago these girl were smart lively intelligent people, who were curious, cared about their surrounding, and would jump on a new thought/idea as if it was free chocolate. To find these teen-aged girls ostentatiously advertising/defending their mediocrity on Facebook was really shocking. In their case I hope they are just experimenting with this new idea (and they are actually satisfying their curiosity of 'what if I behave mediocre?') and will come back to normal.