Great expectations

Great Expectations

“Morning, how are you?” I say

“Fine thank you and yourself?”

“Good thanks, what seems to be the problem today?” I ask

….blank stare…

“Is anything bothering you or are you just here for a check-up?” I reattempt.

…blank stare…

“Do you speak English?” I ask, hoping they will shake their heads or reply ‘No’, my impatience would be appeased.

“Yes yes I do.” Followed by blank stare.

And then I get to wondering, is it me? Am I a bad conversationalist? Is my accent weird? Do I speak too fast? WHY is there a communication barrier when asking the SIMPLEST things?

I’m not an animation fan, however sometimes one finds such surprising hidden wisdom in these little characters. I’m speaking specifically of  Bob Parr, the father in The Incredibles, whose wife is fighting with him because he refuses to attend his son’s graduation from the 3^rd grade. “Its psychotic,” he says, “they keep finding new ways to celebrate mediocrity”.

Mediocrity. It surrounds us, engulfs us and slowly it feels as though it is taking over the world. A performance artist like Lady Gaga can spew out an Ace of Base copycat song with five words in it about some dude name Alejandro, and is heralded a genius. The English language has become so diversified that in your own country you cannot communicate with someone of the same first or second language, because they no speaka de English you speak?! Do I just have great expectations or has mediocrity lowered its standards and an IQ of 60-70 is now regarded as the normal, socially acceptable level of existence.

It cannot be. I can’t simply accept that as is. Perhaps a narcissistic approach is best, God tests all of us in different ways, and my test is not a short transient one. It dealing with stupid people everyday in this bigger picture of the world… patience, understanding, and basically stupid people skills are probably my test – and I’m not going to be rewarded by heaven anytime soon because I’m failing. Perhaps it is the fault of geniuses like Albert Einstein and entrepreneurs like Bill gates – both of whom were apparently pathetic at mathematics – so the world feels they don’t need numbers. Sure we have calculators, who needs to learn algebraic equations? The very inventors of algebra, Arabs, have become lazy, ignorant and blissfully wealthy in their baths of oil. Sheep – we’re such sheep, well if Einstein didn’t need mathematics…yes but he had an IQ of 150! Bill Gates got lucky, he had a good idea and he had dedication and hard work.  The point is that a subject like mathematics teaches logical thinking. No, you will not need to remember the rules of functions or trigonometry to help you attain your dreams, but you learn logic from it all, and that is what EVERYONE is lacking! Logic, simple basic thinking to efficiently complete the most basic of tasks, would enhance communication tremendously.

Or perhaps I’m naive. Where have all the logical people gone? Some are the rulers behind Hollywood’s celebutant fascination amusing themselves as they place and replace their puppets for a worldwide sheep audience. The rest, the rest perhaps have adopted Ayn Rand’s John Galt, and gone into hiding to create for themselves the ideal world of logic, functionality, efficiency, happiness that the sheep of this world must have no part it…well at least not yet!

 I was always more of a Howard Roark fan though. He somehow found the balance of selfishness, to manage to coexist with the rest of the world’s inhabitants and not be so affected by it all. Perhaps that’s the way. Not to give mediocrity so much attention though we are forced to deal with it daily, indifference. It’s not easy! Plan B, if this is proves all too ideal… we can always ask Atlas to please shrug again – a new chaos may be refreshing.