"Wouldn't that be....."

I saw this article in the Chronicle of Higher Ed this morning: In Praise of Adequacy.

And yeah, you know: the author is right. We should be willing to accept that "adequate" is, in a lot of cases, good enough. And that "adequate" is better than "mediocre."

If I say I am an 'adequate' pianist, I am okay with that. I came to it late in life, I don't have as much time to practice as I might like, I'm not "innovative" about being able to improvise or stuff.

But I CAN play things. Maybe not the hardest stuff. Maybe not some of the Chopin stuff with weird hand-reaches or the Rachmaninoff stuff that you have to have Wookie hands to be able to play. But I CAN play - there's a nice Philip Keverin arrangement of the old altar-call hymn "Softly and Tenderly" that I like and that I play as a warm-up, and on good days I can play it mostly right. And I'm working on the original version of "Somewhere over the Rainbow" (after trying a special-for-piano arrangement and not really liking it) that I'm making progress on despite the fact that it has a lot of "weird" accidentals in it.

But if I say I'm a 'mediocre' pianist, it makes me sad. It means I'm not that good. It means I'll never walk on stage and play for an audience. It means I'll never be lauded for it. And yet....when I say "adequate," somehow that changes all of it. It takes the pressure off, almost.

And while I think trying to be the best you CAN be at certain things is a good thing - I also dislike the "Everyone must be a superstar" mindset that seems to have wormed its way into so much. The pressure to be that "unicorn" that is special and unique in some way everyone can see.

(I was thinking vaguely about things yesterday afternoon while putting away the soils manuals after lab: it occurred to me, in fifteen or so years when I retire, how would they replace me? One way in which I was a little unusual was that I was fairly broadly trained, so that I could teach ecology and biostats (both in my "wheelhouse" - things I specifically trained to do) but also soils and GIS - which I had coursework in and did a LITTLE research in, but am not a really-real expert at - and that I was willing to take a deep breath and dive in to teaching Policy and Law despite my main qualifications for that being (a) I had a pretty solid background in what used to be called "Civics" and (b) I have a prodigious memory and I know how to learn, and had a summer free to teach myself/re-teach myself what I needed to know. I don't know how many people fit those qualifications. Not to boast, but: one of my colleagues once said to me, "I probably shouldn't reveal this, but you were the ONLY person who applied for your job who had the qualifications we wanted" and I take that to mean that even 20 years ago or so, someone with my level of breadth was rare, and I think  - from what I've read - it's become rarer)

And yet, despite my having a very particular set of skills (and having had a long-ish career over which to develop those skills further), I still spend a lot of time doubting myself and wondering why I'm not "better." When I should probably rest myself in the thought that I am adequate - perhaps better-than-adequate - for what I am doing. (And yes, I do work to improve, I try to figure out new ways of presenting things and I try to keep learning)

But the problem is, I think, celebrity has become such a "thing" (Celebrities are our royalty, I think, in the US) and we have things like "breaking news" alerts to highlight what this or that famous person is doing*, we all want to be like that.

(*I am old enough to remember the days before 24-hour news outlets, and when WJW or WKYC would break into programming with "BREAKING NEWS," you knew it was something big and bad - a major world leader had died. Or there was a big earthquake somewhere. Or a plane had crashed. My heart still skips a beat when I see "BREAKING NEWS" on one of the news channels, even though I've learned that much of the time, it's something not so very "breaking" in the old sense)

And I think related to that is the decline, at least in some circles, of doing stuff just for fun: I've read that fewer people sing or play an instrument now, because it's easier to turn on the radio (or a streaming service) and you can have someone (presumably better than you at it) who is paid to do that do it for you...and I wonder if we don't lose something by that level of outsourcing.

The other thing the author of the piece writes about is the strange phenomenon - she notes it from TED talks - about how we're also exhorted to fail bravely at things, because either failing breeds humility (thanks, I'm humble enough, okay) or "sucking at something is the first step towards being good at something" (which is just pushing the superstar idea, but that you will be a superstar some time in the nebulous future).

And yeah, somehow I don't like either the "BE A SUPERSTAR" mindset or the "embrace the suck!" mindset - neither one is very happy for me, because first, I know I'm not really a superstar and anyway that kind of thing goes against my nature. And second, being regularly confronted with the idea that I'm not great at stuff makes me unhappy. (I am still, deep down, a perfectionist). But Weil, at the end of her article, suggests a third way:

"Let’s drop the exhortations to fail or suck at something and instead cultivate the adequacy mind-set — the feeling of being proud and grateful to be good enough to continue doing something from which we get pleasure and knowledge."

Yes. Accepting the fact that "good enough" is, in fact, good enough. And the old saying about 80% of life being showing up. And also: the idea that it's enough to enjoy something even if you're not a superstar or a rockstar or whatever ludicrous superlative is being thrown around this week.

I regularly "apologize" (both here and in my own mind) for not making more complicated quilt tops (for example). But the truth is: I enjoy the simple geometric patterns I do. I make quilts mainly as a way of resting my brain and making myself feel like I'm making something that is pretty and that I like. And I do learn things sometimes from my quilting or my knitting....most recently that "many patterns overestimate how much fabric you need, and if you cut carefully, having 1/2 yard or even more less than what's called for, you still might be able to get the quilt out of it." If I pushed myself to do ever more complicated quilt tops, I think I would find: (a) I get less done (and to me, being able to look at a finished top periodically is a big thing; I tend to stall out on projects where I see no progress) and (b) the period of time during which I would "suck" at Mariner's Compass or whatever complicated thing I took on would take away enough of the pleasure for me that the process would no longer serve the purpose for me I want it to serve.

And the same thing with piano: I like it mainly because it's a different way of thinking for me. And it is a little bit of a "power," to be able to make music with my own two hands. And part of the reason I do it is "cross training" for my hands to try to stave off any arthritis from too much typing/mousing, or too much crochet, or something. I don't NEED to be a performer at it.

And I normally say "Don't read the comments" on these kinds of articles (and a few of the comments are a little useless) but the first one, I liked that author's point, because he (?) took on the idea of Disrupting (which in my mind, is another one of those ideas like "be a rockstar" - it's shoving people into a box they might not fit in to): "If we just plugged away instead of hustling for Disruption, who knows what might happen?"

And it makes me think of the quotation I found in "It Can't Happen Here": "'Is it just possible,' [Doremus] sighed, " that the most vigorous and boldest idealists have been the worst enemies of human progress instead of its greatest creators? Possible that plain men with the humble trait of minding their own business will rank higher in the heavenly hierarchy than all the plumed souls who have shoved their way in among the masses and insisted on saving them?'"

Again, that seems to me to fit: a lot of the "bold idealists" I read about in academia (most of whom are self-proclaimed bold idealists) are the ones talking about how we need to "disrupt" the way people have learned (ignoring that universities have more or less worked since the 1500s on pretty much the model we use today) and how we need to go to things like one professor (a "superstar," naturally) teaching "classes" online of 15,000 people, and everyone else - all of the pluggers, all of the minders-of-their-own-business will, presumably, be unemployed and need to retool or drive for Uber or somesuch, or else work as low-paid and underappreciated "graders" so the "superstar" is freed up to do all the fun stuff. (I put up with grading because I get to teach. If I were just a grader I'd look for a different career).

But yes. I do think the people who do their jobs, and who are maybe not "superstars" but are certainly good enough at it: they get overlooked and ignored, and sometimes get told that they'll be thrust aside in the coming AI/robot-jobs/superstars-only-need-apply world, and that seems unfair.

(I may be jaded: I have known a few "superstars" who were lousy human beings, or who were good at ONLY one thing and left a trail of unfilled promises and undone scutwork in their path, where someone who was less of a super star and more of  a plugger had to come through and clean up after them.)

***Edited to add***

I forgot to post the video that was the inspiration for my title! But those of you who are Simpsons fans might already have got it:



**Also edited to add**

It occurs to me that maybe my bar for "mediocre" is higher than it is for many people, given my history as a perfectionist and also having gone to an excellent high school with high-performing students, and a Public Ivy university, and having been in a good graduate program, and now being in a department with people who are excellent - so I see myself as kind of a "flopper" by comparison, when, in comparison to the General Population, I'm probably better than mediocre. Even at stuff like playing the piano.