Monday, August 3, 2009

Mean, Median and Me

I’ve always been an average Joe, you could call me an average Arun, considering the we have one Arun thriving in every square mile. I may rise above, I may descend down, but I eventually get back to the average position, the straight sweet line which you use for reference. It’s like a sinusoidal wave; a trough and a crest and in between I rest.

The idea being am always the guy who took pride in this comfy equilibrium position. The fulcrum looking at the extremes see-sawing in a detached amusement and amused detachment. You could call me the 80% guy. While 95% made me insecure and shy, 70% embarrassed me and again shy. And when I get the 80 am like, yeah baby, that’s me.

‘The nothing spectacular about me, and hey wait am not that bad as well’ is a mode of living I would advocate for majority of my people. Amidst the people in pursuit of the trophy and the ones who play the role of the weakling and get kicked out of the first round, the average joe gets to the finals and smiles and applauds the winner, even semi final would do. Heck even quarterfinal would. Let the achievers make the big money, I’ll read about in the papers and make funny comment about how you need to pay more taxes.. or take it in another tangent and talk about how we get obsessed with tangibles like money ahead of intangibles like camaraderie and peace.

In my 14 years of school education, that I completed 7 years back, countless would have been the times I scored the 10th rank. It happened like a rule. No matter what the class strength was, Arun gets the 10th rank. I took pride in this specific rank, Sachin had 10 written in his t shirt. I reflect with pride. And also the 10th rank guy is the sort of guy who is the potential, he never poses a threat to anyone but he has the potential you know.

I guess the trend still seems to be continuing, the threshold of the average has gone up. You could call me the 85% guy, but my boss still wonders “why the hell is this guy not doing better”, “he isn’t proactive” “too laidback” “he wants to run home””too much time passing”.”gives too much gyan” “he is in his own bloody world”. yes sir! I am all that, I agree and that’s why you gave the not too satisfying appraisal. And hey I was merely sticking to my 80% rulebook ;)


Mak

8 comments:

sree said...

Oh lovely!! you're in your own bloody world and tthats why you're you :) awesome writing arun :)

P.S-the nice comments are for your writing and not the writer :P

Nithya said...

An average Joe's importance is highly under-rated. There would be no achievers or losers if you weren't around. YOU are the fulcrum in the cycle of life :).

Good one bro-in-law!

Aditya Panda said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Vinay Sekhar said...

you are back with a vengence eh? keep up the good posts dude :)

archith said...

jeez? is this what i sound like? lol numbers exist to numb us dude. dont pigeonhole yourself into boxes of your own making.

Arun said...

archith my friend, why dont you simplify your comment and help me understand it :-(

Deepti said...

Ah! I think what Archit meant was that... umm... All that statistics (or any number related stuff, like ranks for eg) are not worth bothering because they restrict us by setting boundaries and making us not look around(or beyond, whatever) them.

And let's not categorize ourselves into categories we invented ourselves. Right Archit?

And Arun, I hope that was.. not too rubbish of an explanation? :P

But you know what. I can 100% relate to what you say.

Noonendvj said...

archith my friend, why dont you simplify your comment and help me understand it :-(