I think there’s a lot of cultural motivation to be some kind of great person - be it because of the great man theory of history or the economic glorification of the captains of industry. However, as communists, our theories of history and economics don’t have any love lost for this analysis of the world. We recognize that without labor, not a single gear would turn. So, in my mind, success as a society doesn’t rely on the prophetic vision of someone unbound by the constraints of societal pressures, but by iterative improvements and experiments put forward by groups of people who could stand to be liberated from under the economic heel of serving treats and proliferating the MIC. In this paradigm, the person who does push forward the big discovery/gadget is congratulated and venerated, but the cultural zeitgeist shouldn’t be centered around that moment of discovery, but instead around highlighting the group and their efforts. Think of watching a Summoning Salt video instead of just the WR speedrun. If I can characterize my desire as wanting to be part of a culture that celebrates the collaborative more than wanting to be exalted as the person who accomplishes something, I can say that I don’t “lack motivation” because I don’t yearn to be celebrated.
I also struggle to see myself in chosen ones - I don’t write the MCs of my novels as inherently special, but rather people who have to rise to the occasion. I hear that media that depicts hordes of zombies (post-apocalyptic has never resonated with me) springs from the same core philosophy. I would much rather hear about someone who is weird because they had to panic and push through a crowd of normal people than someone who is normal who had to run their truck through a horde of zombies. When I think of what I want for myself, the conversation is never to cultivate what makes me special to live up to my potential, it’s always about doing something cool because the opportunity exists for those who would take it.
For example, with my black belt coming up in BJJ (in likely <year), I find a lot of joy in reflecting about how I took detours to learn about striking, wrestling, and judo while I’ve never had a genuine interest in my tournament results which have, as a result, been lackluster. For me, I grew up hearing people say that nobody’s cut from a different cloth and how “you’re a fucking sick (oops, can’t show that word on a Christian forum) if you want to be.” I went into BJJ because I wanted to believe that anyone could walk in off the street and, with the proper attitude, opportunity, will, and work become a black belt. I don’t know that it ever crossed my mind that among the public, I was specially engineered to get that belt because of some characteristic about myself. On the contrary, my enormous gag reflex, gentle demeanor, and sensitive skin would imply that I am particularly imperfect for BJJ. Sometimes it’s hard to go into a group of practicing MMA athletes as a weekly manga reader with no competitive ambition and believe “yep, I can hang with you shirtless people with tattoos and muscles!” even if I was invited by the coach. I think in my darkest moments I worried that inherent characteristics about myself made me too bad of a person to be able to accomplish the goal or that my accomplishments would be given out of pity. Even then, when it came to digging myself out of that hole, the act of showing up and being part of that community and touching grass mat helped bring me out of that funk when people showed me love instead of hating me for being me.
So, I guess sometimes I feel like I’m missing some fire or edge because I’m not striving to stand out. I do have accomplishments that stand out - I don’t like to list them in public because it feels boastful. But if we just look at BJJ - while it’s hard to get accurate data, a safe assumption is that <1% of people who walk in the door to do BJJ make it to brown belt. If the exclusivity were the goal, I feel like I should feel some other emotion about it. That maybe I should lean into it and make it into some complex about what a precise and superior fighter I am. I earnestly, when I’m being honest and sincere, don’t toil in the hopes of being more than someone else. Deep down in there I’m hoping that an attractive person I’m attracted to goes “oh you really like that thing that I like too! Let’s talk about it for hours” and magically I like talking to them for hours. Likewise, being really helpful and working on my own terms has 1,000,000x more resonance to me than being really rich (marble countertops, consuming luxury slop, having exclusive seating/priority, etc.). But with a resume of cool shit that I’ve done it’s like shouldn’t I want to pursue something until it’s amazing? Shouldn’t I be one track minded towards a goal? I seem to be floating listlessly and a goal might shake that up. Am I just coping?
Do you feel the same way? Without great man theory, imperial core chauvinism, and unenlightened non-liberating education do you still strive to be special and stand out? Do you want to be outstanding - the person who finally discovers and invents the thing? Do you have any guidance for me?
To be honest, it was only in college that I began to shed my competitive mindset and casual aspirations of greatness. I always measured my success in my hobbies relative to the skills of others, whether it’s a sport, a video game, or my area of education (physics). While I still enjoy competition today, it does not feel important anymore that I win.
Physics is a particularly “Great Man”-ified field of study. All the famous equations and theories have names associated to them. The most brilliant physicists get Nobel awards and are treated as demigods. I greatly admired and looked up to these people, and I wanted to become like them, because a) I wanted the recognition of greatness, and b) I believed real progress in the field depended on these individual contributions.
Going into college, I studied so that I could one day become a professor, someone that could inspire the next generation by passing down my sagely intelligence to eager students, like Richard Feynman and Albert Einstein.
Leaving college, I was utterly disillusioned with this mindset. First, I realized my own mediocrity. Second, I realized how insignificant individuals are when confronting the profoundest questions in physics. A large number of physicists understand quantum theory just as well as did Stephen Hawking. Many physicists make just as incredible theoretical contributions as did Hawking, but with less fanfare. Inch by inch, I lost the belief that the famous individuals were particularly unique in their intelligence, and started to believe that these accomplishments were almost entirely due to sheer force of will. All of these great thinkers were great because they put in a ton of work over lifetimes. And often, this work was couched in a supportive group of family, and friends, and intellectual colleagues. Einstein, for example, was only capable of developing the differential geometry requisite for relativity thanks to the contributions a mathematician friend, Marcel Grossman.
In my working career, I have seen how much the success of projects depends on a few experts who prefer to stay out of the spotlight, while credit often is given to the project leadership who only have a superficial knowledge of the details.
Growing past this mindset has largely been an acceptance of mediocrity, and observing how toxic it is to believe that mediocrity is a sign of laziness or lack of passion.
If genius is not a total myth, it is greatly exaggerated. Barring physical deformity, humans have approximately equal intelligence. The social and material conditions of each person’s life are far greater determinants of individual success than the particular manifestation of their brain folds.
The math educator Grant Sanderson (youtube: 3Blue1Brown) made some of these ideas the theme of his Stanford math commencement speech in 2023: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7GVHB2wiyg
3Blue1Brown opened me to the idea of math being beautiful and I have never stopped my full throated support of people watching his videos if they’re interested in math. I really like the idea of meeting people where they are like Grant Sanderson was talking about. It’s a core part of my philosophy in life, perhaps to my own peril. I think of chess in that same realm of physics in terms of people feeling refined because of their skill. The only difference is that sometimes children (as young as 8) will get matched up against Magnus Carlson (the undisputed best chess player) and simply not hesitate when they make moves. They haven’t even considered what he has contributed to the sport, they know no fear, and then they take games off of him or draw. It’s a little X factor that keeps the hoity-toity-ness at bay