The Curse of Being Mediocre
zeroiq.beehiiv.com> This psychological defeat is what keeps you up at night.
I totally agree. I'm a bad programmer who knows little about lower level systems. And it is exactly the thought of "I need to get to the bottom of things" that kept me burning candles after my son went to bed.
But humans are fragile. I wish I were a machine who could just turn on/off with a flip of a switch. Human emotions, good or bad, mostly impede my progression. If I quaff a coffee, I get excited, but that doesn't necessarily mean I can tune into production mode immediately. If I have a depression/anxiety session, it usually wasted that whole day. I guess only the passion part works to some sort.
I look up to people like John Carmack, David Cutler, Tom West and Fabrice Bellard who can design, implement and debug complex systems, given it in hardware or software, or both. I admire most not their technical prowess, but their seemingly emotionless devotion to their objectives.
> Mediocrity is directionless
I can relate to it too. Or maybe it's better to say -- you are mediocre BECAUSE you are directionless. I dabbed into many things, but never drilled deep enough to grow that into a career, or even a serious hobby. I think it's mostly in the Gene, given I have always been like this for the last 40 or so years. I could recall my 5-year old version sitting there, impatient with a construction toy. And when I look at my kid I immediately identify this deficiency. I feel sorry for him because I don't really know how to deal with it myself, let alone guide him through. I might find him a therapist if he goes down into this dark alley for too long.
The fact that you recognize this in yourself and in your kid already means you're aware enough to help guide him. Maybe the goal isn’t to ‘fix’ it but to help him explore in a way that doesn’t feel like a dead end.
Thanks. I guess I have the awareness but don't have the medicine. I feel that everything with kids is pretty random, and humans don't do well without formulas. Honestly, my whole life is pretty random lol.
I guess there’s two ways this post could have gone, and it went the way of “you know that sinking feeling that you’re not good enough, you’re right!”
I wrote a book last year for my family. Very few people outside my family will ever read it, but I wrote a book! I’m learning to be my best mediocre self and in so many ways I couldn’t be happier. In fact, thinking about my various personality traits, I think mediocrity is sort of my ideal state. I would probably be less happy/fulfilled if I was more successful.
I’m not sure what the world gets out of it, maybe it keeps you on Tik Tok watching hustle porn? But the ultimate modern counter-cultural fuck you to the system I think is to just be happy without worrying what the world cares about it. And then strive for incremental improvements rather than like dream about that one externally validated accomplishment that will make you happy.
That’s an interesting take, and honestly, there’s a lot of truth to it. The idea that happiness doesn’t have to come from relentless striving is something we don’t hear enough. Finding peace in ‘being your best mediocre self’ is probably healthier than chasing some external validation that never really satisfies.
Also, I would love to read your book.
Congrats. Life is a mystery. It sounds like you have found your best philosophy for dealing with this mystery.
I think technically top 10% is above average, not mediocre, which means exactly average.