Celebrate Mediocrity

General

2024-06-10

Most of us living today are going to be forgotten in 50 years. If you are a teen now, you would be forgotten in a hundred years, give or take. Your own family will perhaps have a framed photo of you. Your workplace will continue without your contribution. Your imprints erased.

Even if you are a celebrity, you'd be forgotten. How many of them from the 1920s can you name today? From around the world?

You are born into this world naked like everyone.
You grow up learning from the adults around you, gaining knowledge about how the world works.
You get your education, completing your schooling and perhaps a degree.
You fall in love, maybe break your heart in the process, and marry the love of your life.
You have children with your partner, starting the same cycle for them.
You grow old, and eventually pass away. If you are lucky, you won't experience any pain.

You are mostly inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. What have you done? What have you done that is worthy of any praise?

I believe this is not a question worth asking.

With a few exceptions, we are born to be mediocre. I am not talking about a specific action, like playing the violin without the passion, but overall. We are not going to achieve anything that sticks in people's hearts. I believe that this is okay. Amazing, even.

We do not live so that we achieve world fame that transcends any time barrier. Or at least, we should not.

We live for the love that surrounds us.
We live to appreciate good art.
We live for that song that feels like home.
We live for that movie that makes us cry no matter how many times we watch it.
We live for the joy that our pets are.
We live for the hugs and the laughs.
We live for seeing our loved ones, even strangers, happy.
We live for the moments of joy peppered through our life, however small it might be.

It is okay to be one of the many. It is okay to do exactly what most people have done in their entire lives. There is a lot of beauty in the things we do every single day. And that alone is worth looking forward to, every single day.

Embrace mediocrity. Celebrate mediocrity.

Still, even now, I'm fighting my way through. Perhaps it's a bit dramatic to say, but I'm struggling against life. Wasn't that what I decided once? To struggle. To live. To breathe and walk. To run. To eat. To bind musubi. To live an ordinary life so I shed tears over the sights of a perfectly ordinary town.

—Makoto Shinkai