Master of None
In Praise of the World’s Jacks-of-all-Trades
As a young child, I grew enamored with my local television station’s weekend showing of martial arts movies. Looking back at it, many of these movies were assembly-line like creations to capitalize on a fad that the great Bruce Lee helped bring to the forefront.
However, there were gems to be found in the multitudes, including the Shaw Brothers-produced/now-cult classic “Five Deadly Venoms” in 1978.
The plot line? A martial arts master directs his final pupil to seek out his five previous pupils (the Deadly Venoms) as he suspects some of them are using their skills for evil purposes. The catch is that the master doesn’t exactly know how they looked like because the students were masked as a Venom during the training.
The master’s last pupil has been crash course taught all the skills that he had taught individually to each of his former pupils. Because of this, however, his student is not an expert in any of those skills.
His master instructs him that his only way to success is to team up with any former pupils who haven’t gone rogue to defeat the ones who have turned to evil.
Back in the day, I was an avid runner. Before nagging injuries got in the way, I chalked up nine marathons and a whole host of lower-distance running events, and even dipped my toes into the triathlon world.
I got into running as an adult-onset athlete who wanted to cut off impending health issues at the pass. Suffice it to say, I enjoyed those years of putting in the miles immensely, even when I didn’t feel like dragging myself out of bed to get in an eight-mile-run before the summer heat became unbearable.
Joining the Marathon Maniacs (a now 16,000-strong club of running enthusiasts) only boosted my enthusiasm, as well as traveling to meet up with people on the running forum I frequented.
Occasionally though, I’d run into a person on a running-oriented forum who took the pursuit a little too seriously. Essentially, their gripe went like this: running events are too crowded with runners, and they didn’t understand why they had to deal with any runner who didn’t have the talent to run fast nor was willing to become the best runner they could be.
Typically, these gripers fell into that range where they were good enough to post a qualifying time for the Boston Marathon (one of the ultimate achievements for the average everyday runner) but would never hang stride-for-stride with the elites of the world for the entire 26.2 miles.
Economics aside (obviously, larger numbers = more revenue to put on the race and keep the event going in future years), this attitude always made me cringe. First off, these folks were nowhere near talented enough to make the complaint to begin with. If you find yourself that talented, you’re never going to start with Joe and Jane Marathoner to begin with at most running events of importance.
Perhaps more importantly, this whole mindset is a total fun suck. By this logic, why join your friends for a charity bowling event if you’re not trying to be a Pete Weber or Walter Ray Williams? Why meet up for 18 holes with your best buds if you’re not going to make Tiger Woods jealous with your performance? Why cook for your local neighborhood potluck if your dishes aren’t going to draw raves from Gordon Ramsay or Jonathan Gold?
No Fun is No Bueno
As a runner, I was slightly better than average at my best, and I put in enough miles to break four hours at a marathon. I used to be a decent enough bowler who earned some league trophies along the way. I golfed with my worker colleagues, but never could get rid of a nasty fade off the tee or hit my low irons very well. And I’ve gotten a bit more serious about bettering my baking now, even signing up for a few community college courses.
Yes, I’ve strived to be better, more comprehensive and more expert at whatever I’ve pursued. But the whole idea of not doing something simply because your talent doesn’t make you the best at it? Or doing everything you pursue as if your life depended on being the best at it?
What a recipe for a cold, dull, and boring world.
An oft-heard joke theme by standup comedians harps on the silliness of participation awards (comedian Kevin James has such a segment on his latest Amazon special “Irregardless.) Sure, awards can be a bit much (as beautiful as some of them are, my running and triathlon event medals are somewhat unnecessary) but life itself is a participation proposition, and it’s the enjoyment of what you’re doing that matters.
Do I have the most valuable stamp collection? Own the most Prince albums? Made it all the way to the Scripps National Spelling Bee? Bought and read all of the Sue Grafton detective novels? Learned all the Japanese and German from the language DVDs I bought on a whim? Made a career out of voiceover work or radio disc jockeying? Won first place in a state fair pie competition? Write with the most frequency on Medium?
Nope, and that’s okay. By the end of this journey on this mortal plane, I will have dabbled in a lot of things, but probably never be an expert over any of it. But I’m living and experiencing life to the fullest, and isn’t that what really counts?
