12 June 2020 | Mediocrity
Originally published on Wordpress
12 June 2020
One Quote
Do you know the hallmark of a second rater? It’s resentment of another man’s achievement.
Those touchy mediocrities who sit trembling lest someone’s work prove greater than their own — they have no inkling of the loneliness that comes when you reach the top. The loneliness for an equal — for a mind to respect and an achievement to admire.
They bare their teeth at you from out of their rat holes, thinking that you take pleasure in letting your brilliance dim them — while you’d give a year of my life to see a flicker of talent anywhere among them.
They envy achievement, and their dream of greatness is a world where all men have become their acknowledged inferiors. They don’t know that that dream is the infallible proof of mediocrity, because that sort of world is what the man of achievement would not be able to bear.
They have no way of knowing what he feels when surrounded by inferiors — hatred? no, not hatred, but boredom — the terrible, hopeless, draining, paralysing boredom. Of what account are praise and adulation from men whom you don’t respect? Have you ever felt the longing for someone you could admire? For something, not to look down at, but up to?“I’ve felt it all my life,” she said.
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
I think somewhere cynicism is accepting mediocrity from yourself, from the world — or rather simply not caring for the standards we set for ourselves, and for others.
It’s a dangerous thought process (at least for long term development of any person, community, nation or ideology — cynicism is perhaps idealism gone rogue).
One Image
And it is always an ongoing process. We cannot achieve perfection, but the moment we stop the pursuit, entropy takes over and we descend to chaos.
One Video
I think I am stuck in a loop these days where I am not able to rise above the vicious cycle of procrastination, laziness and just a feeling of overall hopelessness.
Watching how others react to much bigger problems sometimes over-emphasizes the uselessness of my own life / motivates to rise up to face my own problems.
Not able to write much because then I would go on a long rant. Better you listen to this one — on how ‘not participating’ is never the answer. (But of course, choose your battles!)
