On Excellence

The key to achieving great things with a normal disposition (i.e. one born of the masses, with a NORMAL motivation and moderate drive) is to have a strong support network/web.

I have witnessed this in my own life where I have been hoisted into a position where one may say is 'excellent' or rather to note that I have excelled, not by the virtue of any genius, unwavering determination or uncommon capabilities, but by a crane and hook constantly lifting me above a 'normal' life.

I shall define 'normal' as simply being the largest percentage of lifestyles led, as may be illustrated by statistics and census everywhere. To have a good education, be in a good university and study an esoteric subject as physics is an extreme privilege though many of my peers may not acknowledge or be aware of such a fact as submerged in our social webs, we think we are the norm.

The allegory of the crane and hook then, will refer to that strong support web I have mentioned composed of parents, systems, teachers and peers. Firstly to be born in a safe and nurturing domestic environment is a blessing in itself as youth shelters can always illustrate the devastating effect domestic violence/negligence can have on a person.

The system then plays a very important part on how focused it is in raising the individual rather than being a system for systems' sake, and this is where students find interests in scholastic academia, sports or other interests.

Finally, what I find is the most important point is having peers to freely communicate with. No man is an island entire of itself, and so being social beings, we cling on to parental expectations and progress together with the rest of our social circle as a group in a dogged tail-biting race not to be left behind.

As the quantity in my immediate social circle has dipped for whatever reason - cultural differences, differing mindsets, plain laziness to socialize - I find that 'excellence' is not so instinctive as it was, and the reason is now clear that a fundamental drive has been removed.

A multitude of benefits arise from strong social support, as one is called upon to fear, critique, envy, learn, humble, and be proud of oneself, running through the spectra of base emotion that arise from interaction. We fear being outcast and left behind, and fear humiliation thus we strive not to fall far behind. We critique works and achievements in our pride and envy and thus we learn and teach simultaneously. We are humbled upon being bested, and proud when achieving beyond our immediate peers though far greater talents may surpass us. And in this isolated system of apparent irrationality, we hold on to our sanity and act as we always have.

Our friends give us this yardstick to measure ourselves against, and the larger the circle, the more accurate the stick as per the law of statistics. Therefore once removed from a substantially strong network, we enter a system void of measurement; less of measuring sticks and more of a new ball game.

And therefore in our later years when we are removed from the artificial construct of this perfect social amalgam known as a 'school', we have to adapt in functioning differently. Unless we upkeep our networks, we are bereft of information used to plan and motivate ourselves. Furthermore in areas of cutting-edge development, we lose an absolute in the standard of achievement as things are not so clear-cut as As or Bs, 4s or 5s, or dollars and cents. We have to find the reason for constantly nudging ourselves forward off the brink of the 'possible', to know what we are doing.

And so comes true excellence that will surpass age, time and social constructs. These are the people we deem to have genius, unwavering determination, and uncommon capabilities. In other words, they have found their raison d'etre.

On personal motivation

If any individual human cannot be greater than the sum of parts of the human race, is there a dis-incentive to personal excellence? If anyone falls short of the ubermensch ideal, isn't it logical to say that someone else will pick up the slack and we can never have a net degradation to society?

And yet certain individuals in history seem to show themselves to be greater than the common clout by virtue of having diverted and being in control of large amounts of manpower. Either by charisma, or some impressive trait. It seems that the key to a strong legacy would lie in rallying the masses, and not a romantic devotion to personal excellence. Pity.

On charity

Do people have the right to basic amenity and dignity if they do not contribute to society? I leave the disabled and incapacitated out of the argument as my moral view holds that the able should fend for the incapable.

However what about the stragglers of society? Many may view this as a straightforward black and white choice, especially those who've grown in a merit-based society as I have.

Viewing a youtube video of a man who gives of his own heart to everyone who cannot find the means to support themselves has set me thinking, and I realize, that these 'stragglers of society' will be omnipresent at least for now, and when the reality comes down to it, can you truly choose to ignore another suffering human life?

Everything has shades of gray, you just need to remove those tinted-mental-lenses.

Water

The water has taught me many things. For one, applying brute force CAN get you somewhere, but mostly with little headway and a lot of capsizing. The faint of heart will keep with the flow of the tides while keeping still, this ensures a greater capacity to stay afloat but little else in moving toward a specified destination. What is best then, is for a kayaker to always try to balance his capacity to stay afloat with a suitable force to propel him in the right direction. This will come with many refreshing baths in the body of water as one learns to better read the currents with his hips over time.

And just like everything else, and other hardly-linked analogies, the water is but a microcosm of life. Life has its currents and eddies; through hardship people can falter and curse their existence, or learn to overcome and prosper. Through windfalls people can create greater opportunities, or they could dig themselves a pit of unprecedented despair. And such is the tidal nature of life; all throughout an individual's existence, one could falter to an oncoming tide, or have fear paralyze the heart such that the current sets you adrift to somewhere you have no intention of heading. And just as I've learned, we will always falter but we must never fear, for every moment we move, we learn to read the tides and stabilize our futures, that we'll know where to act to head ourselves the right way.

And we must never float and feel complacent that we have not fallen into hardship in peaceful times, for the strength of the tides are not for us to command; and to its strength holds this adage,

The only constant is change.

The

Head cannot rule, where the heart is not in place

The irony? paradox? Of a life led by logic. I'm no genius, but it doesn't take a Vulcan named Spock to know emotion is the horse which cannot be bridled by logical thinking. Now I just need to punch someone for insulting my mother and let him take over my starship. Any suggestions blog-ry?

Inscribed 2/11/10

" "

Hark, is that a dagger I see before me
Crisp, icy steel with an edge glinting
As fine as my line of sanity
Unbloodied un-perverted
Undulating un-repressible

Calling:" "


I see her, frozen with wide-eyed fury
glaring at a geist of untouched emotion
calls for catharsis
I cannot move, I cannot call to her
As she stands, statuette of ration lost

Calling: " "

The weapon so cold,
so familiar so old,
Holds no malice but for the wounds
the thoughts inflict-
AS Razors they shred into every inch of the human
ripping the conscience grinding the justification stripping the logic
until at last naught is left but
the senseless thought
Duncan must
die
again

" "

Memory

All alone in the moonlighttt~~~...

Nope, that's not what I'm talking about blog-ry. Memory, such a b*tch, our excellent little subjective representation of personal realities. Meaning it's so unreliable, someone please make me into robocop with a 100 TB HDD, thanks.

When I think of her, the good times, the fun times, the excellent times where she is without fault and issue comes to mind, my little *ing fairy which I gave up. Then I have to FORCE myself to remember the reasons why I made the choice in the first place, and it always isn't easy... It never is...

Sigh memory, why do you do this to me? Granted such a mechanism is extremely useful in preserving basic sanity, cause if I can remember exactly how my canoeing trainings and ninja BMT trainings went, I would probably be a bitter bitter man on anti-depressants. But still, not this way... I need a object reality to focus on when my emotions are swaying round the charts, if only you could help me blog-ry.

Oh well, as I always believe, there are many reasons humans can't be trusted, and memory is one of the natural causes. Back to mugging.

Inscribed 1/11/10