We should aspire to mediocrity

Half of people fail to attain average.

Life isn’t fair.  We would like it to be true that most people are good at something, that weaknesses in one area are usually countered by strengths in another and vice versa.  Hence the popularity of the stereotypes of the dumb jock, the ditsy blonde, the physically-socially inept nerd, and so forth.  I more often find that talents go together, a weak but positive correlation.  Of course, if organization A selects for beauty and organization B for intelligence, the average member of B will be smarter but uglier than the average member of A, but that’s not the proper comparison.  It may nevertheless be true, if unfair, that, for example, for the whole population pretty girls tend to be a bit smarter and vice versa.

When I brought home my first baby girl, I resolved to devote myself to her utterly and be an excellent father.  Since then, I’ve tried very hard to raise my girls well, but honestly I’m at best an average father.  The thing is, every new father says the same thing to himself, every father earnestly tries, and every father learns that doing right for your children is actually very hard.  The right thing is often unclear.  I’ve been sometimes too strict, sometimes too permissive; the more one fears one excess, the more likely one is to fall into the other.  The more one is alert to problems in one area, the more one is apt to overlook problems in another.  If I am an average father, then I’m pleased, because average is pretty good.

Like all physicists, I went into my field wanting to do exceptional things, but I clearly have not been able to operate at the level of my colleagues at my university.  To be fair, when I look at what they’ve done–in research, advising, teaching, and community outreach–the average physics professor is pretty impressive.  Then again, the average farmer, fireman, nurse practitioner, airline pilot, kindergarten teacher, marine, veterinarian, priest, electrician, or secretary in the physics department (seriously, they make the department run) is pretty impressive, when you stop to really think about it.  It is with careers like it is with parenthood (although less important).  Nobody wants to be a screw-up.  Everybody has a very strong incentive to give it their best effort.  To achieve average is pretty good.

Of course, there are screw-ups.  We’ve all known some.  But it would be sad for us to base our sense of self-worth on the contrast with them.  Then we would come to want them to be screw-ups.

I don’t think that popular entertainment–television and movies–does a good enough job preparing people for a life of mediocrity.  Sure, movies will often begin with the hero consigned to apparent mediocrity, so that he shares our own insecurities.  But usually he finds his secret calling, the calling that makes him successful and important to more than just a few.  I fear that some screw-ups have wasted their lives in fantasy from the idea of a secret calling.

One can have a satisfying life as an average man or woman.  Average means (or should mean) being able to make enough money to support a family, being able to cook well enough to feed them, being creative enough to invent stories and games to entertain one’s own children, and so forth.  Your children and their children will remember you, and then you will be forgotten.

It is enough.