Strength and Humility

I am in awe of nature but ...infrequently. I am rarely dumbfounded or even impressed by nature. But, the general boring-averageness of nature does not diminish its stupendousness. There, lying under the sky, or under a tree, or among its fellows, is a usual rock that is so far past mundane that it barely exists. One ordinary rock can be replaced with another, right? Zero meaningful consequence? True enough. But not so fast.

One piece of nature is like another until it becomes noteworthy or remarkable. What makes a specimen remarkable? Philosophically, everything in existence is perfect, unique, until it’s compared to another thing. As nature preserves a mixed and immutable order; it must clearly follow that miracles are only intelligible by way of human opinion, and merely average events of which the natural cause cannot be explained by an ordinary occurrence (Baruch Spinoza). The day passes to night every 24 hrs., but only some are 'sunsets', the ones we notice. Hold that thought in your head for a minute as ‘premise one’.

If it’s true, that everything is perfectly what it is, then it’s our impressions and added meanings that make anything worth paying attention to. As an example, do you like wet weather or dry weather? If you answered, “It doesn’t matter what I like because nature doesn’t care about my preference” you'd surprise me. The rock is a rock and it doesn’t care that you think its boring or fascinating. And then the primitive human-kind used fire-heated rocks for cooking their meat. Was that specific rock a special one? Can you smell what the rock is cooking? Then regarding the meal, if it had protein, and your ancestors could kill it (without it killing them), then it was eaten. Are you a vegetarian? It doesn’t matter what you think when the lion eats the zebra. 'Premise 1.5': nature doesn’t care about what you think of it, or what things means to you, or… about you.

What makes one specimen of nature worthy of comparison? What makes one specimen so impressive that it diminishes the other items into plainness. Let’s not talk about rocks anymore, let’s talk about animals.

Someone recently said to me, “mediocrity is for cowards” and I was like, damn that’s harsh. Let me think about that one.

If mediocrity is cowardly, then is excellence is brave? If mediocrity stems from cowardice, essentially from caving to fear, then distinctiveness of quality takes on the glow of courageousness. Is this true? Let’s test it with an example from nature, mammals specifically. We know that in mammal groups, the admirable specimen is emulated. Where the strong and smart and beautiful one goes, others follow. When a certain mass of the herd moves (again based on the same principal that mammals emulate the admirable specimen) the stragglers become apparent. What animal group do you see in your mind? Type of animal? Obviously the distinctively excellent one you noticed was near the front, if not at the front, right? But there are strong, smart, beautiful ones in there that you haven’t noticed among the multitude. Some are ordinary but some are distinctive. I’m not assuming the ordinary ones are cowards. So negative. I don’t support the theorem that ‘mediocrity is for cowards’. However it may follow that courageousness is passively linked to, not required for, excellence. Its possible that admirable specimens can also be courageous, and be even more admirable for it, 'Premise 2'.

I believe that bravery is a bonus trait, not required for beauty. Consider this. If you know how things are going to end before you even start, then its not an adventure. If there’s no uncertainty at all, then its there’s no risk, then there’s no courageousness. And without courageousness, not so much excellence, because we don’t have as much admiration for people who only do easily achievable things.

Confidence within uncertainty is the secret. And some amount of faith is necessary to do anything distinctive, not that every beautiful specimen needs to stand out, yet...

Courage starts with letting ourselves show up and be seen (Brene Brown).

To summarize:

1. You and I are not particularly special. It’s not a good thing or bad thing to be ordinary. Furthermore, we are all, each of us, outrageously special. The incalculable qualities in our stories are beyond words. We are each infinitely impressive whilst mundane.

2. In seeking personal excellence you may find fear. Meanwhile, if you display your sincerity; your true self; you are beyond beautiful.

3. I recommend faith: be seen, be uncertain, be confident and be humble.