Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Mediocre misery

Every mortal wants to succeed. Though the definitions off success might vary, Success remains the most cherished word (feeling, emotion) the human mind could comprehend.
I m least interested to write about Success now, nor about the other extreme called failure. But what caught my attention is the feeling and consequence of being caught between Success and Failure.
Success hogs limelight in every right sense. Failure too gets its chance of attraction. Success (or the good) gets applauded for being Successful whereas Failure (or the bad)is given chance to reach out to the people.
Pathetically forgotten are the folks held in between the good and bad.
Neither are the good enough to be chosen nor are they bad enough to be stoned. Caught in a very precarious position, they are comfortably forgotten.

The City with “The Best” label hogs the attention and gets the next big infra done and hence is benefited.
The city with “The Worst” label also hogs the attention and hence gets the next big
Package for Betterment and hence is also benefited.

The child who gets the first rank gets applauded in his Parent Teacher Meet and is encouraged to aim high. The child with the least mark gets badly reprimanded and hence is forced to strive hard. In both cases, benefits galore.

Lost in between the two ends are those mediocre ones; who either face the Cold shoulder they have been served with and scale the heights or lose the morale and slide back or they continue to live it as a way of life and resign to the agony of being mediocre.

Knowledge is the most important factor, some get it soon, some strive hard to get it and there are few others who are struck half way in the process.
Why is it we ignore the last sect of people often.
Why is it we recognize the best (inclusive of better, good) or the worst (inclusive of worse, bad)?
Does it send out a signal, if cant reach the pinnacle don’t worry go for the roots!!!

10 comments:

Naren Balaji said...

Mediocre are those people who live under the delusion that they want to succeed! But they will never take any step forward towards success because they are afraid of failure!!

The worst people(or worst city etc.) hog the limelight because of the mediocre people! These mediocre people want to feel that they are better off than someone!!

Boopalam said...

I am confused.... you state that 'Knowledge is the most important factor, some get it soon, some strive hard to get it and there are few others who are struck half way in the process.'

But, you also bring in the reference of first rank and the least mark. But, how do you justify that first rank is indeed directly proportional to the knowledge base of the person? It could just be the outcome of dubba hogging or a photographic memory! If we take ther reference of the corporate world, the prominent premise of the peters principle still seems to hold good in many occassions.

I would rather categorise them based on the true knowledge base, rather than grouping them under whichever category.

pushkalAn& pattabhiraman said...

hey no dbt knowledge is power..butth idiotic educational system we haev goes buy the rank, percentage et al.. i was jus drawing a parallel to our system!
i would never associatye knowledge with ranks otherwise!

Boopalam said...

ok... noted..

Slowsharks said...

Just imagine the situation in which everyone is successful. Then whom wud you call mediocre? So, success, mediocre and failure are all relative. If u see through the eye of a person whom you are calling mediocre, he might feel that he is successful in the given circumstances and living happily. The definition of success may also vary from person to person. So u cant take a stand for a thing which is relative. But yes knowledge is something that is not relative. If one is knowledgable, he is and no one can deny that. So, if you are co-relating knowledge with success, then it makes some sense. Otherwise, I m not convinced.

Blue Panther said...

You have pointed out an important fact that exists in society. In fact it reminds me of a statement that comes to my mind more often than not :
One day at school I forgot to take my notebook with my homework to school. My school,now, was not very far from my home so I told my teacher that I could prove to him that I was not lying and that I really did my homewook if he could just let me leave his class for five minutes. He didnt know that my house was very near to school but he did turn to me and said :" Never be a mediocre person in this Mediocre world son". I still dont know what made him say that but every day I think on this statement it motivates me to move forward and always carry my notebook with me because every time the school is not going to be close to my house.

Vinodh Nathan said...

well.. lets say 5% is good stuff 5% is bad stuff and 90% is ok stuff.. what wud u notice the stuff that looks normal or the stuff that doesnt look normal (good or bad).. its a pretty straight forward thing.. if i make a typo here.. would u remember that more than the 25 other words i did type correct??.. our brain i strained to look for the "catchy" or "abnormal" thing good or bad.

prem said...

heay what happened? u deleted ur orkut account kya?

Abhay said...

cudnt agree more....tht's human nature for you...

aditya said...

is there not an in built want in each child/person..
who is happy with mediocrity,, no one even recognizes it.. but the thought counts...