To Suck Or Not To Suck...

...That is the question

Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous inadequacy or to stand against a sea of mediocrity or by opposing end it? (My humblest apologies to the Bard)

"Has he gone nuts?", you might be thinking. Or, gentle reader, maybe you are under the suspicion that I've been drinking from Eugene's well again. If you did, you'd be wrong on both counts.

I listen to CBC radio an awful lot. In fact it's just about the only thing I will listen to in my truck. I especially like the Vinyl Café, hosted by Stewart Mclean. It's a bizarre collection of music, essays and stories that seems to work for me. Each week I eagerly await a new "Dave and Morley" story or listening to some musician that I'd never heard before. It was one of Stewart's essays spun me off on this month's article.

No one is good at everything. Some are blessed to have one thing excel at. A special few have a talent for doing a lot of things well and even fewer are so exceptionally talented that they are at the pinnacle of their chosen field.

What does that make the rest of us poor plodders? Like a lot of people, I think that I'm really good at being mediocre. When I stop and look at it, I'm bad at more things than I'm merely average at doing. You might even say that some days I have a talent for performing badly. Going over the things I suck at, I realized that it's an awfully long list of stuff that I'm less than stellar at doing.

I've played bass and guitar since I was sixteen. I can't say that I'm a great musician and on a scale of one to ten, I consider myself a solid five. I can't play a piano more than a few scales and a very poor rendition of "Let It Be". I did take fiddle / violin lessons with my daughter because I thought I might like to play some jigs and reels, but frankly, listening to a cat fight might be more enjoyable.

I'm not much better on the home front. If you've visited my kitchen, you know that I'm not much of a handyman either. I've been in "construction mode" for over a year and it's not going to get finished any time soon. In fact, I'm going to hire my brother to come in, finish the job and do it right. This way my wife Rosie might just get a new kitchen built some time before the next millennium. I remember that it took me five years to rebuild my bathroom when we decided to renovate it. The workmanship was acceptable, but boy did it take me a long time to get it completed.

Then there's running. I look at the list of people who can out pace me and that list is long. I'm not even including all the Olympic and elite class runners. I can list the names of at least ten runners in the club that I will never catch. If I also include the personal bests of some of the older members, well, let's just say that I'm a seriously middle of the pack runner by comparison. I've even been reminded of this by other clubbies. Just ask Ian Lagdon about the day he picked me up and carried me back to hang with the Fringers.

In high school, I was in the fine arts program and pretty good. At one point, I was having a bad spell, as we all are prone to have now and then. I was getting annoyed with the sameness of what I was doing and the frustration of not being able to translate what I had in my head and heart to paint and paper. The art teacher I had at the time was not only a great instructor, but also a great mentor. He saw my mood and quickly got to the root of my problem. As a grade ten student, I was comparing my abilities with those of the giants of the ages. I was thinking, "How could I even try to be creative and original when compared with Tom Thompson, Michelangelo and Rembrandt?" I was looking at a glass that was seriously half empty.

Mr. Thomas pointed out that I was comparing my abilities to the top 0.0001% of all humanity, the very best of the best. How can anyone hope hit a mark that small? He reminded me that what I needed to focus on, is not how far I have to go, but how far I'd come. I had to look not at the fraction of people that were better than me but the vast majority of people that I was better than and where I stood in the grand scheme of things. And he wasn't just referring to other artists, he was referring to everyone on the planet.

He told me I had to remember that and to focus on making the talents that I had better. There would always be someone better or willing to take me down a notch or two, but there were also be a lot more people wishing that they had the talent that I had. It made me start looking at the glass as being half full again.

Being the best in the world is something that most of us will never achieve. However, if we look at things from a different point of view, we can say that we are better than most at what ever we choose to do. I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts that if there is anything that you want to really try to do and you strive to improve, you'll be in the top 10% of all humanity, no matter how poorly you think you do. You can bet that the majority of people wish they were as good as you as well.

I know that I'll probably never catch the "fast guys", Tom Carolan, Bill Schnurr or Bob Julien, even on a good day. Running club member, Ron Riuli's marathon PB might even be safe from my clutches. However, while I am not going to be complacent with the times I post, I also won't worry about measuring up against anyone but myself. My times may not be impressive compared to other runners, but when I measure against my honest abilities, I'm doing pretty well. I just need to remind myself to use the big scale of life to measure where I really am, and not use the yardstick of the people in front of me too often.

However, I still suck at the fiddle, by anyone's measure. The neighbours are still complaining.

By Mark G. Collis

Revised: February 15, 2004.