On Mastery & Mediocrity
The balance of achievement and acceptance
The present discussion entails some open-ended wonderings on reconciling the drive towards mastery with our inevitable imperfections, both individually and collectively.
It seems at first glance that the allure towards achieving mastery is so obvious and intrinsic to human development as to barely warrant a second thought.
The vast majority of us master all sorts of abilities: our native tongues, tying our shoelaces, using culturally specific culinary utensils whether spoons or chopsticks, and bipedal locomotion.
Watching babies taking their first steps as they learn to walk puts this seemingly trivial motor skill into proper perspective: the intricate symphony of the vestibular system’s balance, neuromuscular proprioception, standing upright, and coordinating the requisite musculature all come into play.
As for speech – I find it remarkable that again while most of us demonstrate fluency of the language or languages we grew up with, I would venture that a non-trivial subpopulation also experience abject terror at the prospect of public speaking without training (i.e. glossophobia). The power of perceived duress to regress our abilities in the moment seems to be at the heart of mastery. To remain calm in the eye of the storm of high-stakes performance.
More generally, the rewards for mastery are numerous. At the individual level, the dopaminergic surge of hitting goals, crossing items off of our checklists, nailing targets, and doing difficult things is often reinforced by the social rewards of victory over competitors, earning prizes, financial incentives, social approval and status among our fellow humans.
It is an interesting interplay of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. Many domains of human endeavor are sufficiently rich and complex to trigger this autotelic drive – that is to say doing something for its own sake: games, sports, math, and the arts are all fertile grounds for this to emerge. Moreover, it appears we as a species asymmetrically reward mastery. We have only to look at who we hold up most high both now and in the course of history – athletes, artists, authors, scientists, entrepreneurs; indeed, culture is largely composed of their exploits.
This all seems quite obvious and not even slightly contentious.
What about mediocrity?
In a culture that extols exceptionalism, one of the greatest sins is to be merely average. Yet by definition, most people are mediocre at most things.
It follows then that perhaps the name of the game for the individual is to explore broadly until you find the game or games you can win at.
Or perhaps, failing that, go make up your own game.
Enter the Infinite Game, a la James Carse: players of the finite game play within the rules whereas players of the infinite game play with the rules.
First we compete. Then we criticize. And then we circumvent.
And this motion underlies the dance between culture and counterculture fractally expressed from our hemispheric lateralization (The Master and His Emissary) to the cultural schism between Left and Right.
When is it okay to simply be okay? When do we insist on striving? And what is the optimal balance between the two?
Insistence on exacting standards likely yields attitudes of exclusive elitism, arrogance, and perfectionism attainable by only a vanishingly small percentage. The so-called 1%. Or maybe the 1% of the 1%. That’s all well and good for them, but what about the other 99.99%?
On the other hand, flattening out all hierarchies is arguably just as, if not more problematic. Who decides? How does anything at scale get accomplished? Has there ever been an incidence of successful non-hierarchical governance? Perhaps such a government could exist, but not at our current level of consciousness as a whole. We are not yet ready for Star Trek’s United Federation Of Planets. There’s a lot more work to be done.
Many kinds of mastery are ultimately fleeting, evanescent and arbitrary. Does our competence even matter in the looming surge of AI? Perhaps the drive towards mastery is rooted in an attempt to control some small aspect of reality, even if for but a brief window in time. The very finest among us are still subject to old age, sickness and death. We all make mistakes and confront our very human frailties. We all are quite fallible. On our deathbed, all our accomplishments and everything we’ve accrued in this lifetime count for naught. And this is where that compassionate drive shines forth that cares unconditionally beyond any chimera of social status, competence or net worth. In light of this inevitability, the whole enterprise of mastery is inverted — it’s not about what you got, but what did you give?
What the next stage of synthesis that incorporates the very best among us without leaving anyone behind remains to be seen.
A closing observation I would offer is that the very same drive towards developing mastery, significance and exceptionalism is deeply embedded within the social drive to be needed, valued and useful to the collective of which we all are apart.
I’m rooting for Team Human.
I think you hit it with your closing remarks that the real drive is to be needed, valued, and useful. Which ties right in to your observation of the fear of public speaking, which is not really the fear at all. It's the underlying fear of humiliation and the prospect of being cast out of the tribe that is so debilitating. Because if we're shunned we are truly not needed, valued, or useful.