Shadow of Mediocrity
Mediocrity, n. (Oxford Languages)
1. The quality or state of being mediocre.
2. A person of mediocre ability
Here’s the thing with the Shadow of Mediocrity, the usage of the term mediocrity is not a straight forward usage. There’s heavy nuance behind it. The sentence used for first definition above moves the word mediocrity closer to how we want to work with this Shadow. That sentence is: “heroes rising above the mediocrity that surrounds them.”
The mediocrity that is referred to in the Shadow of Mediocrity is rooted in the “fear of being different,” as stated by Richard Rudd in Gene Keys. In the Shadow of Division for Gene Key 7, we explored how the fear of being different is projected on to others who we believe are different from us. The Shadow of Mediocrity is an exploration of how mediocrity is defined by others and how we have internalized it as a fear of being different.
The individuals who are into home schooling have talked about this for ages. The fear of being different develops within mainstream modern education. We go to school, we are all taught roughly the same thing, then we are ranked by how well we can regurgitate this information taught to us on standardized tests. Those that do well, fall into the hamster wheel of life. They go to school. Go to college. Get a job. They’re good little workers who have been conditioned to learn information, perform a standard, and are taught to feel fearful or shameful if they step out of line or think outside the box. In return, we also judge our peers that don’t do well on standardized tests. We judge individuals who go to trade schools and work those types of jobs. We’re taught to look at the hierarchy and how they are different and therefore, bad by being different. Replace Trade School with Art School or Community College or OR OR OR. We are taught from an early age that it is better and, more importantly, safer to fall in line; to be and think like others and to do and behave well and good based on the standards. Only by falling into line will an individual succeed.
By setting up a system where sameness is the rule, we have successfully turned individuals into outsiders and reactionaries. – Richard Rudd
This is where the Shadow of Mediocrity lurks. The truth is that everyone is different. Everyone. Some people are absolutely meant for formal education, they do well and excel at this. That’s wonderful. What is also wonderful and is not held in the same regard are the individuals that are actually much better at Trade Schools or Art Schools or Apprenticeships. It is wonderful that these individuals have branched out from the “norm” and found something that works for them, and, ideally, brings them joy.
The Shadow of Mediocrity extends beyond school into our very thoughts. We land back into a shadow trap when we think of school as good or bad the same way we land in the same shadow trap when we think of home school as good or bad. Rudd describes free-thinking, which also sounds a lot like critical thought. Where do we question what we are being taught by school, churches, media, or social media? If you have blind faith in everything you consume without allowing for questioning, you likely fall into this shadow. Every individual has the right to make up their own mind, think outside of the box, in whatever way works for them. It does not mean they are wrong and it does not mean you are wrong. What does fall into the Shadow of Mediocrity is deciding along a binary of what is good or bad and teaching only that. The same way someone who home schools their children may think that anyone in public school is a “sheep” fails to take in account the impact critical thought and free-thinking can have. The lesson to think for oneself may not come from school (though it also might depending on the teachers), but that doesn’t mean that critical thought and free-thinking will be supported in home schooling either. The Shadow of Mediocrity is just as present in people have their own dogmatic or personal beliefs. When only those beliefs are taught at the expense of the will and free-thought of the child, the wheels are set in motion for the child to step into the box of mediocrity and remain there regardless of whether they are taught at home or at school.
The people that think outside the box, march the beat of their own drum, or let their freak flag fly are regularly shamed for being different or for not behaving. Some are able to embrace this difference and make their own mark in the world in their own way. Others are trapped in the mindset that they are less than or not enough, because they aren’t like everyone else. So, they’re not really able to move forward because they’re trapped between what they feel they need to be in order to feel safe and the calling of their heart. This fear also shows up by people who have excelled at the norm, but, honestly, feel like they are living the life of someone else’s design.
Another aspect of the Shadow of Mediocrity is a fear of success. “You compromise your dreams not because you fear you will fail, but because you know that to succeed you will have to rebel against the whole of society and its expectations of you. You fear what you might become because you don’t know who you are.”
The Shadow of Mediocrity serves two main functions: 1. “Keeps you from thinking outside of the box; and 2. To become of cog in the “machinery of society” by thinking, dressing, behaving, and looking like everyone else. The Shadow of Mediocrity asks you to take down your freak flag and fall in line with everyone else. Yet the only way through the Shadow of Mediocrity is to raise that freak flag high and proud, take a leap of faith, and believe that you can (re)invent yourself any way you choose in order to find out who you really are.
The Repressive Nature of the Shadow of Mediocrity is Wooden. This makes me think of a wooden puppet. These are the people who had hopes and dreams as a child that they subsequently grew out of. They lack the motivation, inspiration, and courage to move out of the status quo. The status quo has left them hollow and wooden. Relationally, they are afraid of change, so they never leave. Their human spirit has collapsed in on themselves. “The result is that they live lives that do not belong to them or allow them space to breathe or create.”
The Reactive Nature of this Shadow is Artificial. The Reactive nature’s human “spirit is channeled into the world where it creates an illusion of itself based upon its dreams.” These people live purely artificial lives. They may appear successful and even like they are marching to the beat of their own drum, but they’ve been compromised by the system. Relationally, people with a Reactive Nature “cannot stay in their relationships because their façade inevitably breaks down and rage rises to the surface, at which point they usually run away.”
I took an End-of-Life Doula training this past May. We talked a lot about what it means to have a Good Death. A Good Death is very personal and will be different from person to person. One element of a Good Death may be reviewing the dying person’s RUGS: Regrets, Unfinished Business, Guilt, and Shame. On our death beds, when we are face to face with our mortality, we go through our hopes, dreams, and heavy events. If the dying person is able to do so with openness and compassion, then, often they are able to find freedom from lays heavy upon them.
From my INELDA Training Manual:
Regrets
Disappointment over something that has happened or been done
A lost or missed opportunity
Often experienced as “if only,” “I should have,” “I could have”
Unfinished Business
Something that a person needs to deal with or work on
Something that has not yet been done, dealt with, or completed
Guilt
An emotion of conflict one feels after doing something they believe they should not have done
Often experienced as “I did something bad”
Shame
An unpleasant self-conscious emotion typically associated with a negative evaluation of the self
Often experienced as “I am bad”
While this acronym of RUGS feels a little out of place for working with the Shadow of Mediocrity, examining your own RUGS may help offer a little insight in to the areas of your life where you sticking to your comfort zone at the expense of experiencing your life fully. Perhaps what also helps someone have a Good Death is to have a Good Life. One where you face your fears and your shadows in order to live without regret. If not now, then when?
Reflection Questions:
Do you have any could haves, should haves, or would haves? What comes to mind?
What moments, if any, do you carry around with you as a regret of something you did/pursued/etc? What moments, if any, do you carry around with you as a regret of something you didn’t do/pursued/etc?
Is there anything in your life that feels unfinished? A hope or a dream that you convinced yourself that you couldn’t or shouldn’t do?
Where are you staying comfortable? Have you identified any growth edges where you bump up against the feelings of guilt, shame, or even not good enough?
If anything comes up, is there anything you can do about it now? What feels like freedom to you?
Two Kinds of Intelligence
By Rumi; Translated by Coleman Barks and John Moyne
There are two kinds of intelligence: One acquired,
as a child in school memorizes facts and concepts
from books and from what the teacher says,
collecting information from traditional sciences
as well as from the new sciences.
With such intelligence you rise in the world.
You get ranked ahead or behind others
in regard to your competence in retaining
information. You stroll with this intelligence
in and out of fields of knowledge, getting always more
marks on your preserving tablets.
There is another kind of tablet, one
already completed and preserved inside of you.
A spring overflowing its springbox. A freshness
in the center of the chest. This other intelligence
does not turn yellow or stagnate. It’s fluid,
and it doesn’t move from outside to inside
through the conduits of plumbing-learning.
This second knowledge is a fountainhead
from within you, moving out.
How to work with the Shadow of Mediocrity:
Work through the reflection questions above.
Explore where you feel stuck, bored, or like you are on a hamster wheel and can’t get off.
Explore your relationship around what it means to be or feel different. What would happen if you decided to fly your “freak flag”? What would being more of yourself feel like? “You have a freak flag. You just don’t fly it.”
Think back to when you were a kid. Is there anything you dreamt about doing, but never did?
Reread the Repressive and Reactive Natures of this shadow with regard to how this shadow shows up in your relationships. Are you too afraid of change? Or are you afraid of when your mask falls off and you run? Be honest with yourself.
Work with a Life Coach or Therapist. A Therapist can be helpful with both repressive and Reactive natures, but will be especially helpful if you identify with a Reactive Nature of this shadow. A Life Coach can be helpful for those looking for support if they’re wanting to embrace change.
Not sure how to work with this? Check out this Blog Post here to see how to work with the Shadows. Also, feel free to check out my courses Honoring Your No and Owning My Sh*t here to help work on that self-awareness piece.
Disclaimer: What I find unhelpful with the Gene Keys text is that it is more spiritual than realistic, especially when these states are resulting in mental illness. Maybe all mental illness has a root in shadow, but that isn’t for me to say and it is super invalidating for people who experience these states. So as you read through this, or any of these shadows, know that your own experience is valid regardless of impersonal spiritual texts. This goes for Gene Keys, Human Design, and any other spiritual text even from world religions. If these texts invalidate a person’s humanity, then it’s the text that is the problem and not the person. Always use personal discernment. More of my two-cents on spiritual and religious dogma, modalities, and texts here.
