Sometimes I wonder if I’ve chosen eccentricity as an alternative spiritual path. I was encouraged down this track by reading John Cowper Powys, who I consider to be the greatest novelist in English of the twentieth century, despite being hardly known. He was noted for obsessive fetishes, like baptising his walking sticks in rivers. I’d define eccentricity as being true to yourself in defiance of social conformity. I would recommend it but for two things: (1) my strict rule not to recommend any way of life and (2) Jack the Ripper might fit my definition, and hardly anyone would see evidence of a spiritual path in his known activities. Of course we know nothing of his later life after the murders of prostitutes in Whitechapel, for his identity was never established; so he may have ended up as a saint.
In my disputatious way, I refuse to accept that anyone’s journey from birth to death is not a spiritual path; and this includes any hanged dictator and any stupid president who fell in with the wrong crowd, to take two imaginary examples.
I’m scribbling this whilst cooling the pastry for an apple pie, which in the scale of eccentricity isn’t so high. The kitchen radio was finishing a serialised dramatisation of Resurrection, Tolstoy’s last work, and then it was Jonathan Franzen, author of a “great American novel” The Corrections appearing as guest on “Book Club” before a studio audience. It was such heady stuff and such exalted literature that my brain got overheated. I had to switch off and start writing this.
What can I do? I’ve sliced the apples and lightly stewed them with sultanas, cloves, cinnamon etc but realised there is not enough to fill the pie dish. I’ve decided to add some mincemeat, left over in a jar from making Christmas mince pies. Instead of mixing it with the apple, I’ve put it in one quadrant. There’s no actual meat in it: the name is historical and these days it is a mixture of raisins, spices, fat and so on.
The pie’s in the oven now, so I can get back to writing this. I’d intended to go on about the eccentricity of walking out in pouring rain & getting ecstatic over spontaneous rivulets flooding down the steep streets, & jewelled granite shining in the dirty gutters like treasures in rockpools by the seashore; and how I sometimes like to sniff like a dog on such walks—obviously not on all fours, but with total appreciation, brooding on every aroma as if it’s the main function of my brain. But the pesky pie has upstaged it taking up my attention and too much of my self-imposed 500-word limit. I’ve just realised that I never marked the pie-crust to show which part contains the mincemeat.
Just before I closed the oven door, an odd thought popped into my head, prophetic perhaps, who knows? Never mind Stephen Covey and his Seven Habits of Highly Effective People: you can keep that. What about this for a theme: “Mediocrity is something we can all do, the great leveller. Why waste life in trying to be someone above the ordinary, when you can simply be yourself?”
What could be as unique, as magnificent?
I’ve tried and tried to be mediocre, but I just can’t make it.
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Hm, you’ve managed to strike a chord in me with your ending thought.As I’ve been reading a fair bit of Alan Watts lately, I have been musing over this very thing. Namely: Why seek to excel in anything if it only serves to reinforce the double-bind illusion of ‘seperate-ness’ (for lack of a better term)? The only thing I can think of that even remotely reconciles achievement in Watts-ian terms (at least relative to the thoughts put forth in his The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are) is for the pure fun of it. If it is done in order to stroke one’s ego, to compete with ‘others’ (THE illusion), then its really only the dog chasing its tail…Oh & might I add that I thoroughly enjoy your blog; I’ve often been a lurker & only now got ’round to commenting.
Take care!
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I think that mediocrity is more often a fear of thinking and having one’s own opinions than it is a touch of tin in the soul.
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fleming 🙂 what is it like to be below mediocre?
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I watched “An evening with Ustinov” last night (recorded in the early days of Gorbachev). Peter Ustinov quoted a military report on a soldier: “sets himself low standards and consistently fails to achieve them”. It’s a well-known phrase now, of course, but I believe he first put it in circulation.Do you see mediocrity as something nasty, Hayden, to be avoided at all costs? Should we not respect the fear of thinking, for it is very prevalent? What do you mean by “tin in the soul”?
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sketchmonkey, thanks for your comments. I respect Alan Watts but the last time I read anything by him was in the early sixties, and maybe I was merely reading the Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac and imagining I was reading Alan Watts at first hand.
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precisely…………..
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your subject is self-contradictory. mediocrity and eccentricity don’t go together. most of the people who think they are super genius, are in fact, super mediocre. they are actually sane and consciously thirsty enough to consider themselves above average, which they are not.if you are an eccentric, then either you are jack the ripper or saint benedictine. not a mediocre guy. that’s for sure.we are all mediocre. van-gogh, the lunatic, was a pure eccentric. so was hitler.
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Ghetufool: I know that we don’t expect eccentric and mediocre to go together but why not? I have carefully checked the dictionary definitions and see no contradiction. Alistair: precisely what?
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Kathy, Kathy, you are funny, and I appreciate it! I love to laugh.Being unable to descend to mediocre, I don’t know what might be lurking below mediocrity. If you ever find out, let me know.So there!
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Fleming LOL ok I’ll let you know. It feels great!!!! i’m afraid of heights.
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Chinese (Simplified): 平庸的, 普普通通的Chinese (Traditional) Mediocre!:)
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yves, i thought for some days, then i made up my mind to respond.please don’t mind, but a dictionary to a westerner is the same as an almanac to an indian. serves as cure-all. but completely useless.
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Ghetu, you must be right. We use these books sometimes as a weapon rather than a torch of illumination.
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How was the pie though?
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the pie could have been better. The mincemeat part wasn’t good—flavour too sickly and processed. On first draft of the post I enclosed a photo of it, but decided, “it’s not about the pie!”Thanks for asking though.
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Tis a shame, when good pie goes bad. Still, gies the half starved sparrows something to mull over.Of course you may link me. Thanks for the comments.