Mediocrity

I have seen some people hell bent on fighting mediocrity. Some of them even take it to the extreme of hating people they term mediocre. Fanatic opposition to mediocrity does not make sense.

It is all relative and based on the frame of reference one is using. What is mediocre for one might be excellent for someone else. What is excellent as per one, might be mediocre for someone else. Even a so called expert who appears to give excellent performance now, might have had his/her mediocre days early in their career, as per the expert himself/herself. And, even now, another doyen in the same field might feel this expert is just mediocre.

When we say someone or someone's performance/work is mediocre or great, we are just making a statement based on our own knowledge, comfort, and confidence in that area, as of that point in time. Let us say we call a work a great piece of work. And, we might enjoy that work well. For another person, apparently more capable and knowledgeable than us in that area, can that work be not mediocre, if that person finds there is nothing so great in it? So, who is making the right statement here?

We, who call a person or their work mediocre, might ourselves be called mediocre in our area by another person who takes a higher pedestal than us in the area/domain. Are we going to call it unfair and protest that?

Even if, now we think we are experts and can judge others, what about that time in our lives when we were not experts (just figuring out our way around) and we were still churning out works and some pitiable souls consuming it then? If some of the experts of those times, who would have definitely termed us mediocre then, had hated us for mediocrity, would we have survived and grown? What would have been our state of mind then? With out the acceptance and accommodation from some good forgiving souls, we would not have grown into a state where we consider ourselves as experts and are able to critique.

Excellence is a never ending pursuit. I would say excellence is even a myth. It is entirely up to each person to define internally what is excellent for him/her and strive towards that - no need to get this validated with (or approved by) anyone or no need to justify this to anyone. There is always someone or something better than you as per you (whether you are aware of that person or not), at any stage in any area.

If these anti-mediocrity activists understand this, they would do a big favor to the other sides of their brain.