Thursday, July 08, 2004

"You need to become a better individual. I am not saying you are a crappy person, but there is always something that everybody lacks. We, the geeks, mostly lacks in conversation skill and self-image. We are not aware about this until somebody else point that out to us, or see ourselves in a video tape, or maybe when we realize that nobody wants us. Look yourself in a mirror. Do you see a loser or a winner? You must see a winner"

Nice (if typical) motivational speech directed towards geeks, but especially interesting for me. Because I don't want to see a winner in the mirror. "What?!", you splutter incredulously. No, 'tis true, I don't think I want to be a winner. Am I mad? Scared of success? There's bound to be some deep psychological problem that creates this sort of thing.

But seriously, I don't want to be a winner. The thought of it is it both unsettling and, dare I say it, revolting. I don't know, perhaps it's the full moon, but the thought of self-confidence is, well, frightening. I'm not sure whether it's because that would be a dramatic step away from my personality, but I would think not; I think the fundamental issue is that I don't like the thought of being a winner. This is possibly due to the fact that I have this fractured image of what a winner is - it's one of those strong images that is really hard to express in words. Suffice to say, it's not something I wish to pursue.

Surely actually wanting to be a failure is condemning yourself then? The thing is, is there a dichotomy? Winner and loser, failure and success? I would guess that there is someplace in between that I would like to see myself. Mediocrity is the best word for it. The thought of being nothing more than a failure is comforting at times (that's another story for another day, children), but I would like to delude myself at moments like these that I have the potential to rise above it - but I certainly have no desire to be a success. So there must be a middle ground, or else I'm going to be running in circles (which is always a possibility).

In short, I don't want to be one of those smug successful people - mediocrity is my cup of tea.

How is it I find stuff to write about these nights? Not a clue.

3 comments:

Jenny said...

I'm not too thrilled about 'winning' either. may I always make mistakes, and may I always be accepted even though my mistakes are huge and annoying indeed.

on a completely different topic, may I always follow gazza around and piss the hell out of him and his friends by going to as many second year lectures as I can fit into my own timetable. yes, even chem lectures.

oh, btw here's another poem, this one is nowhere near as bad as the last one I posted, don't worry:

I have a cat.
I have a mat.
I placed my mat,
upon my cat.

the mat, it sat
upon that cat
it sat and sat
and that was that.

and now my cat
is very flat.
I have a mat.
I have no cat.
gee, this writing crap on the spot instead of spending hours trying to express an actual idea is fun too! snarking great stuff.

ps, no, I don't know what I'm talking about, I just like posting comments here ^_^

xiaodai said...

Confucious say :"mediocre is best." Mediocrity sometimes implies smooth sailing, no big success and, on the flip side, no big failure. Congratulations.

Jenny said...

oh yeah, is "may you live in interesting times" really an insult, or did terry pratchett make it up?

*shrug*