Avoid The Middle

Commonplace Newsletter #46

This is going to be a short one. Because the idea is fairly self-explanatory. The title says it all: avoid the middle ground in all things. The middle is a bland, boring and often dangerous place to be, though it feels safe. And conversely the edges, the outer margins, the extremes are free and freeing even though you feel less protected and like you are out on a limb.

Let’s get into it.

I said once before that I would never again use a meme as an image for one of these essays, I lied. You know what Emerson said about foolish consistency and hobgoblins don’t you.

The Interpretation Of Memes

Okay, so above we have what is called the Bell Curve or the Midwit meme. In it you have your standard IQ distribution curve (it’s beyond the scope of this here essay to get into the validity of IQ and the Flynn effect and xenophobic biases and on and on. I can’t be bothered to be quite honest. It’s a minefield. But just indulge me for a minute would you. We’re just playing with ideas for fun here. None of this is serious or especially meaningful.)

Okay. So on the left hand side of the curve, the low IQ side you have a picture of a wide-set eyed simple creature who, whether by accident or design, really reminds me of the spiritual guru Eckhart Tolle. He looks happy enough- the cartoon simpleton I mean- blissfully ignorant in his simple life with its simple pleasures and its distinct lack of the strain of thought.

And on the far right side (pun intended? Pun not intended? I don’t know any more) we have a cartoon figure in a vaguely ecclesiastical brown hood who also looks content enough, although it is of a more knowing, philosophical, in-the-world-but-not-of-the-world persuasion. Or at least that’s what I am being led to infer here. Such are the benefits of owning an IQ of 130 plus. Or so I must imagine, for I am of very much of middling intelligence where my hypertrophied verbal skills are balanced out by completely unremarkable spatial and logical abilities.

But back to the meme. You have the left, you have the right and then dead centre, right in the middle there, you have the punchline, you have the point of all of this. In the centre of the bell curve you have the emblem of the majority of humankind- a gritted teeth, skinfade haircutted cartoon man whose bloodshot bespectacled eyes are crying tears of pure frustration at the injustices of his life.

So like all memes this is a template that keeps on giving, you caption it with whatever you want as a means of propagandising your own petty opinion to other content brained dorks. One example among many- Left: ‘mate, I just trust my instincts’, Right: ‘it is perfectly rational to trust in your deep instincts, since they evolved through generations of evolutionary pressure’, Crying midwit middle: ‘I’m gonna need a source for that’

And another:

Left: ‘I just do whatever I feel like’, Middle: ‘I visualise my future, make a ten year vision, set SMART goals, break those down into a productive daily routine, Discipline beats motivation’, Right: ‘I just do whatever I feel like.’

The bell curve is a horseshoe, is the point. Though the respective rationales are radically different, the dummies and the geniuses are sympatico and they live their lives the same way based on the same underlying value systems. It is the masses in the middle who are thus deluded and unhappy and frustrated because they are insecure in their intelligence and societal position and so they end up intellectualising everything and ignoring their instincts. They are Intellectuals Yet Idiots (IYIs) to use Nassim Talebs famous phrase.

And if my lazy life spend loafing and peoplewatching and interacting with members of all strata of society and all parts of the bell curve has taught me anything it is that the idea that the middle is a bad place to be is profoundly true.

The Palace Of Wisdom

First of all, I can already see that this essay isn’t going to be particularly short after all, so apologies for that bit of accidental deception at the outset. With these essays I write what I feel like in a single draft. There is no prior planning or research, so sometimes things can get away from me. Now, I don’t know if this (lack of) method makes me a wide eyed fool or a brown hooded genius, but I do know that it is only those essay writers in the middle who actually plan and do research and find evidence for their preconceived concepts rather than just showing up and seeing where the pen ends up leading them.

But anyway. The thing about the bell curve meme, as we have already hinted at, is that it is actually a horseshoe. The top and the bottom are very similar. The run down, underclass apartment is cluttered with trinkets and sentimental items and worn furniture and the aristocrats country pile is cluttered with trinkets and sentimental items and worn furniture. It is only the middle class, middle income suburban house that is magnolia walled and minimalist and in tune with whatever the current ideas of interior fashion and strategies for maximising future resale value are.

Realising this dynamic is freeing because the way out is implied within it. Those at the middle of the curve, being insecure and unsure of its position in the game of life, are always striving. They are tryhard and mimetically driven and ‘too smart for their own good’. It takes a certain intelligence, and indeed a certain level of education to rationalise away all of the instincts that scream out that this whole rat race business is probably not the best way to spend your one and only life. So stop doing it.

What is Bohemia then but a means of thus avoiding the middle by either giving in (moving to the left side of the curve to a more fatalistic, eat-drink-and-be-merry type existence) or trying to get closer to the worlds of old money and high art (a move to the right on both the class and cultural curves). 

Such tactics are the way to go I would say. People often interpret Blake’s ‘the road of excess lead to the palace of wisdom’ as a call to become a pisshead or a junkie but I think that he was saying was to avoid the middle, if he was saying anything at all. Either ascetic simplicity or all out ambition. Or the oscillation between the two. Big dreams or gentle acceptance. Saunter or sprint.

This dynamic of one or the other applies especially when it comes to matters of consumption, I believe. Either read big, intimidating serious books or read fun trash. Be singlemindedly productive or slack off with impunity. ‘Content‘, by and large is a middle ground medium, which is probably why I dislike it almost categorically. I say one should either properly learn and study or instead watch a cartoon or something else that is unabashedly fun and mindless. No TED talk middle ground. No kidding yourself that you are somehow doing something by watching a Netflix documentary on a hot button issue.

Understand, the middle is a world of portmanteaus- infotainment and docudramas watched by flexitarian workaholics- the middle is multitasking and smartphone side hustles that kill leisure time without bringing in any real money or helping to develop any real skills.

Such behaviour is the opposite of wisdom, I believe. Now, being didactic and giving people advice is a middle ground activity if ever there was one so I am aware, as is so often the case here, I am skirting dangerously close to flagrant hypocrisy. So I’ll wrap this up with a joke, because at one point before standup became this weird political middle ground, comedy was the thing that the high and low had in common. 

Left: life is hilarious, nothing is serious. Middle: life is serious. Right: life is hilarious, nothing is serious.

So the closing joke, the closing one liners is this, it goes: ‘there are two kinds of people, those who believe their are two kinds of people and those who don’t.’

This is both absurd nonsense and also true. The same as our bell curve meme. Don’t take it too seriously because taking things seriously is a midwit trait. But there is nothing more serious than being trapped in the midwit middle, so do take it seriously. But don’t. You know?

I’m gonna leave you with this upsetting tangle of zen koan-like confusion. Because only midwit essays have neat conclusions.

Until Next Time,

Live Well,

Tom.

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