Embracing Radical Mediocrity

Embracing Radical Mediocrity

A landscape that is dull. Yes a landscape that is dull. May I remind
you of the significance of blending in into the whole. That one store
is spread across the land. A franchise if you will. Nothing showy.
This land is our land with the illusion of many options.

The chips may be flavored in different ways, but they are made of the
same substance. A substance of subsidized agricultural phenomenon. Oh
how far we have come with monoculture and crops as far as the eye can
see. It’s a living for a sure and a way to keep the machine running.
Food or food stuffs? Variations on the same chord of homogeneity and
complacency.

It’s all in the routine. An interesting analysis of pattern and
foresight. The pastor and the punk have so much in common in that they
adhere to some type of image and routine. Keeping up with appearances.
Finding commonalities within other like minded people. For what is
good about thinking like another? You can connect superficially or through a tight knit technological Bluetooth thump of a signal.

Think for yourself. Or don’t. Group think seems to be the trend these
days. Why challenge an establishment? I mean overall thinking is
overrated. We do it all day. Everyday. Why not adhere to a certain set
or rules and patterns that seemingly have worked in the past? It’s
that good old tradition used to justify the actions of the present.
Well there is certainly more to this that meets the eye. These
traditions are passed down because of they had some semblance of
utility and relevance. It’s all about taking it apart and putting it
back together again. You simply just act out a certain mindset and
perception. Of course it is biased, but what is so wrong about picking
a lane and staying in it. Those white and yellow lines and painted on,
but with one sharp jut in our driving we can veer into something
dangerous or dare I say opportunistic.

Resisting to just resist seems enticing, but what does it really say. Why
would you resist just for the sake of it? It’s almost as if it is
breaking rules to follow the rules. Or visa versa. It operates on that
same dichotomy. Blindly following rules will surely make you dull.
Blindly resisting these so called rules can lead us more into
confusion. At the end of the day it all part of the same bird or
horseshoe or whatever.

Feast your eyes upon what’s in front of you. That beautiful mundane dance.
That mountain of stillness we refuse to summit. How odd it is that we
can barely sit still and not let boredom simply take us. Boredom is
just a concept that was invented to distract us. We think we need to
be distracted all the time. That is certainly the monkey mind. Jumping
from one thought branch to the next. What good does it do us? We focus
much time on jumping on the next thing that will give us a sense of
pleasure or completion that we miss what is in between. That area of
nothing happening. What someone might call “boring” , “mundane”, or
downright “not interesting”. Well funny how interesting that can be.
What does it really say about ya if we cannot just be ok with nothing
happening. It’s happening all the time all around us. Like watching
paint dry or grass grow. It’s not a fast car or a glaring television
so we lose interest and focus. Well why do we need to focus in the
first place? Why do run like rats in a cage looking for more cheese?

Allow yourself some space.

If you tear on the perforated line and sign here, you can see that
this is all just made up. It all came from some part of the
imagination. Everything out in the real world has come from some type
of action and thought. Sometimes with more thought. Sometimes without.
That’s not the point. The point is made up as well. What happens when
we get “the point”? Well, we look for more points. It’s like chasing
that next solution. In a world where we see problems we are so eager
to escape or “solve” them with answers. Whatever convenient fits in
the groove of our worldview. We tend to shun all those bitter
uncomfortable answers. The ones that don’t make us feel good. Well, it
is what it is and what we tend to feel or think on the matter is on
us. It’s how we react. It’s how we act. And then how we act towards
ourselves and others when we react.

It literally matters. Well, not as literal as you think. Most
everything we act on or think about it symbolic. How much of it
actually is literal? We see in terms and concepts. It’s a great tool
to act in the world. We need those little symbols to move in what we
may call real. You could say that we literally move symbolically, but
what is more symbolic than anything. And so on.

Look how we gravitate so eagerly to the extremities of life. Like
little hedonists, we want the best of the best. The best food. The
best sex. The best experiences. That comfort. That sense of security.
That pleasurable moment of making sense of the world around us. Well
tell me. Who even likes to suffer?! It seems the main tenet of
existence. Religions love to say how life is suffering. What a
wonderful marketing ploy to offer a way out of suffering. A
methodology. A mindset. A set of rules for one to act out in the real
world. Who is one to say that this concept of suffering is anywhere
close to what life is. Well, life is what you make it so they say.
Make it up the way you want it. Follow who to want. Make believe an
identity to make you feel good. To make you believe that you feel
unique. We are creators and we are certainly good at making things up
and rationalizing why we made them up in the first place.

But what happens when we stop moving away from discomfort, confusion
and pain. What happens when we stop labeling it as well. To define is
to limit. There’s that middle ground. That stillness or whatever to
call it. Don’t waste time trying to define something. Sure. Call it
the now. Call it the eternal present. Those are nice sign posts and
symbols. The real meat lies in just seeing without the need to rush,
move, act or react. There’s that space to breathe.

Again, allow yourself some space!

Funny how so much is tied to our breathing. Inhalation. Exhalation. We
can see it is a dichotomy. A dramatic framing of tension and release.
We breathe in and then breathe out. One pushes and one pulls. Or what
have you. You can make up so many ways to see this wonderful dance of
common opposites. There we go making up things again.

You can’t have that spiny and convoluted concept of happiness without
that wonderful dragging feeling of sadness. You see how that works?
Hard to escape. You can’t have one with out the other. Choice isn’t as
free when you’re caught in a web of confusion. Choice is born out of
confusion. The freedom to choose is built within a box. I mean who is
really doing the choosing here? What made you choose a sandwich over a
the soup combo? You just felt like it, didn’t you? Within that little
space here was some point of tension. Maybe not as debilitating and
existential as you would think, but there was some tension between the
idea of making an action. There it is. Those little mundane periods of
tension within every ability to choose.

Now you are sitting in a car. You don’t know what you want to listen
to. You thumb through the different radio stations. None of them are
striking you. It’s all a wash of mediocrity. The same songs on repeat.
It’s funny how your passion for music has dulled. You have been
conditioned to the same structures and prosaic pop like lyrics.
There’s that tension of choice again, but this time you choose to
listen to nothing. A silent car ride. You start hearing things you
didn’t pay attention to before. Your thoughts start to form a train of
other thoughts. You’re allowing for space. Rolling with the punches.
Good! Silence turns golden and theatrical.

It is drilled into us from an early age to be our best. To work hard
and smart. We crave more than what we have at the moment. We think we
can get better. Just within our reach. Waiting for the moment where
the piece’s fit together like a colorful puzzle with neon colors. So
you miss out. Miss out on what? Miss out on the moment of living. Some
may call it living in the moment. It’s nothing spectacular unless you
make it out to be that way. Most people who tout about the “Now” are
too busy conceptualizing the now. Why describe it? Just live it, man.

It’s ok to not be ambitious. It is ok to roll with the bunches. Why
live under the pressure of others to achieve more than what you have?
It’s perfectly ok to be mediocre and not a master at something. Do
something badly and enjoy it. Do it because it makes you feel good.
Who is telling you otherwise? Society? Well society is an imagined
order to begin with. If you break that down, you can just see people.
People with individual struggles, passions and dislikes. If you’re
going to dislike something than do it or at least pay attention to it.
Everything you need is with you right now. All around you. What are
you really doing when you are “seeking”? Where are you? In your head?
Creating false narratives and stories? It’s fun to think about, but
when you are constantly in your head you miss everything happening all
around you. Happening all the time. Maybe there is no rhyme or reason,
but it’s delicate dance. You may miss many laughing squirrels trying
to engage with your monkey mind.

In this modern world, how radical is it that you can be fine with
being fine. Not happy or sad. Those come in waves. Be the watcher.
Surf the waves. Feel the ease of not resisting. Overall it’s ok to be
ok. To moderate your extremities. To go off on tangents. To be
moderately extreme and wonderfully mediocre. Just see what happens.
And as we know, things will happen without our control. All the time.
It just happens to be that way.

DG