Average Beyond Defence.

This is the first weekend of the semester. This is too, the first Saturday of the third year of my academic pursuit. Soon it will be over and off I go into a new chapter. Only last night, I was down with a cold and some light fever. On my bed, scrolling through random Facebook accounts I stumbled upon accounts of my former primary school English teacher, and some primary school acquaintances as well. And last night, like any other nights too, I can't help to reflect on my existence. 

One of my routines everyday is to read some articles which I have found to be of a significant interest for the day. One of the joy in doing so is to, if you're lucky, come across a very, very significant article which coincide with your predicament. "In Defence of Being Average" written by Mark Manson, an American self-help author (not a big fan of the self-help genre, because I can help myself without others telling me what to do?) (haha) but his article is, for a guy who doesn't read much self-help books, delivered sense to me. What is average and above average? And how do we define both? The fact that to be beyond average takes time and practice and along the pursuit, we are all, pretty average. And we all got to live with that.

We have to come back to the real definition of normal. In a sense, what drives your everyday insecurities and emotional retaliation are all from, one of it, is the distorted definition of normal and average. The feeling of you having tried for too long and too much, the feeling of envy and ego over your assumed entitlement to be above average. Those feelings drives my pre-sleeping thoughts, and I don't want to think the same way anymore. My existence, though it's too early to sum it up and put it into lines of depressing sentences, so far, has been mediocre. This pursuit of becoming beyond mediocre, at times will bring us down to the deep pitfalls of hell (frustrations) and this will take a toll on you, spiritually, which in my worldview is pretty pertinent. 

So I shall set my standards to what God wants for me. The other day, I had the privileged to met Dr. Megawati Moris, I dropped by her room after class for an uplifting, aimless chat (not that desultory actually, because no conversation will go that way when you're conversing with her). She says "Everyone nowadays tells you to take the road less travelled. If you ask me, I won't do that. This is my life, and I want to take the road that has been used up and often travelled. I don't want to take the chance". 

Because to be above average, at times, will push you to "take the road less travelled". And you lose yourself along the way. 

Nodal, Anti-Nodal.

This is a classic tale of an underachiever. In his early twenties, struggling with college, with responsibilities beyond the grasp of his capable hands. This is a compilation of two decades of  hopelessness, two decades of insecurities and constant failed pursuit of a meaning(s) or a purpose(s). I have chosen not to talk about it anymore, and tried my best to make it go away, to shun its existence and to sweep it under the carpet, unnoticed, untouched and unrecognised by me in particular and those who are around me. But I failed miserably. 

An underachiever wouldn't achieve beyond great, they will, as according to societal decree, be average, and to fail is normal. With that "reality" in mind, I tried to deconstruct my predicament. Is it true? Is it constant? Is it fixed? I have no room to manoeuvre then? I'm not going to tell you what I have been through. You might tell me it is not that bad after all, but let me assure you, it is that bad. If I choose to tell you the complete truth, an underachieving twenty something might be insufficient to describe what I really am. 

I have dreams too, you know. I have ideas. When people talk about what they have learnt in class, I think about what that man said halfway across the world, decades ago on the same matter but was left undiscussed, hence I ended up assuming it was not important and I fell into the mundane, fallacious "in-class-group-activities" discussing on a mere trivial matter made important. So, it is true at times, I'm an underachiever, but by the standards of the system, that is. I can manoeuvre, but little by little I realised, that the system is a set of repetitions, repetitively by default, not making us "feel" different, not making us see the world in different prisms and not making us solve problems differently. 

There's no use, no actual, concrete benefits (as far as I can see so far) in manoeuvring in a repetitive, constant anti-nodal and nodal waves. So, I'm not going to revolt, turning myself into a left wing socialist slash Bernie Sanders slash Michael Moore slash Chomsky avid supporter, parading around campus telling people to quit the system with fight the corrupt and capitalism kills your mother placard but I will, deep inside do so, and in silence and persevere in repetitions. 

Well, this is positive. I was hoping to end this differently.