Mediocrity

See, if we drank ourselves to death now, there’d be no one to say, What a shame. They showed such promise. What they could have been, were it not for their fatal flaw.

It’s too early to develop a drink problem, really. We still haven’t shown any promise. We haven’t been abroad as serious players. As philosophical contenders.

No one’s cheering for us. No one’s expecting things of us. It’s only once we’ve started to gain a reputation that we should start drinking ourselves to death.

 

If we died now, no one would say, What a loss. What a wasted talent. What a pity. What they could have been. What potential. Where they could taken thought, if only they hadn’t have been cut off in his prime.

Destiny still regards us as randomers. As random fuckheads. Not philosophy-princes in waiting, or anything. So we can’t just give into alcohol yet.

 

It’s not as if we need time off from being a genius. It’s not that we have talent to burn. Potential to waste. It’s not as if we’re half destroyed by the attempt to think – to realise our genius, to see it home. It’s not that there are thought-tasks too vast for us. Too arduous.

We’re not broken by what we’re trying to do. By who we’re trying to be. We’re not destroyed by our efforts. By the burden of our genius. We’re not actually tormented – properly tormented. We haven’t got a fatal flaw that’s stopped us achieving what we want to achieve.

 

There’s nothing tragic about mediocrity. We’re not mad, or even half mad. We’re not alcoholics, or even half-alcoholics. The instinct of self-preservation’s too strong in us.

Mediocrity finds itself all too bearable. Mediocrity wants to continue as it is. It’s not at war with itself, like genius. It isn’t torn, like brilliance.

Mediocrity’s contemplating a long, long life. Being itself for, basically, forever. Just going on, mediocrely. Just perpetuating itself. Cruising on, self-satisfied. Happy enough with itself. Reconciled to itself. Unambitious, in a fundamental sense. Unperturbed. Reaching no heights – no depths.

Never on its knees. Never at prayer. Never desperate. Never asking to be anything other than what it is. Mediocrity’s just fine, thank you. Mediocrity’s perfectly reconciled to the way things are. Mediocrity doesn’t want to change the world. Doesn’t want revolution. It’s happy to persist. To just go on, year after year, being itself. More and more itself. Confirming itself, over and over.

 

Mediocrity, never wanting to sacrifice itself. To let itself burn in service of anything higher. Never reaching. Never craving the most high or the most low. In the middle ground. Keeping things as they are. Preserving itself. Making more of itself. Preserving itself. Making the world safe for itself – for more mediocrity.

 

No one’s trying to snatch the pint glass from our lips. No one’s decided to intervene. No one’s saying, Don’t you think you’ve had too much? No one’s Concerned, capital C. No one’s discussing us with others. No one’s planning an intervention.

We’re allowed to do what we like, which is fine because we’d never really do anything. We’d never actually drink ourselves to death.

 

Self-preservation: our most shameful feature. Wanting to remain in existence, for all our suicide-talk.

We play with suicide. We toy with the idea. But we’d never do anything. Death isn’t real enough to us.

And we’re not mad. We’ve got no signs of madness. Madness isn’t driving us to brilliance. We’re not fundamentally imbalanced. There’s not some basic chemical error in our makeup. We’re sane – terribly sane. Boringly sane. Mediocrely sane.

There’s no Hölderlin amongst us. There’s no Antonin Artaud. There’s no Sexton, no Plath. And we’re not perturbed about that. We don’t mind about that.

We want to plant ourselves on earth for a few decades. To live out a life – a mediocre life. To carry on as we are, undisturbed, unwagered. Unsacrificed. To perpetuate ourselves, our kind. To make more of ourselves, more mediocres. More unambitious.

We want to go on a bit longer. Adding nothing to the world, and taking nothing away, not really. Negating nothing. Suspending nothing. Letting it be what it is. Living at no distance from the world. At one with it, the world.

We read the wild stuff, but we’re not wild. We comment on the mad stuff, but we’re not mad. We always bring it home – to a mediocre home. We always reduce it. Level it down – all the way down. There’s not a flame we don’t want to dampen. There’s not a fire we aren’t drawn to smother.

We’re going to grow old – imagine that! We’re setting a course towards middle age, towards old age. We’ll go on! We’ll continue! And we’ll get fat, too, probably. We’ll grow paunches. We’ll droop. Our asses will sag. Our jowls will swing.

We’ll get comfortable in middle age. We’ll wear big sweaters, or whatever. We’ll love comfortable things. We’ll have comfortable things all around us. We’ll lounge in comfortable chairs. We’ll watch comfortable programmes. We’ll read comfortable magazines. We’ll busy ourselves gardening, and stuff like that. We’ll learn to drive, given half a chance. Drive from here to there. Visit our in-laws, or whatever.

We’ll have a partner in life of course. A marriage! Imagine that! Emotional stability. It won’t be all romantic chaos. Lovers. Break ups. Affairs. Monogamy: that’s for us! Very calm! And we’ll have couple friends. Dinner parties. We’ll cook for one another, couple for couple.

And mediocre talk over the table. The unintense talk. Not burning the world down talk. Not destroying the world talk. Not self-murder talk. Not revolutionary talk. Not turn the world upside down talk. Not desperation talk. Not just too much talk.

We’ll unlearn intensity. Adolescent zeal. Even love – we’ll unlearn that. Because we’ll love only mediocrely. And we’ll only hang out with the mediocre – our fellow mediocres. We’ll love only the average. And only love averagely. And only love the average.

 

Our mediocrity doesn’t provoke us: that’s the worst thing. It doesn’t make us live differently. We don’t Desire, capital D.