It began as a simple idea. The virtue of mediocrity. Like so many of his friends, Stephen had grown up with calls for excellence buzzing in his ears. Even in the parody of a film like Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure there was a lurking sincerity: Be excellent! We should aspire to be the best. But Stephen wondered if collectively we hadn’t taken these calls to a pathological extreme.
Stephen had exhausted himself. He had exhausted himself in the gym where he tried to sculpt his body to match the manipulated images of underwear ads. He had exhausted himself at work where he tried to reach the upper echelons of the corporate hierarchy even as he recognized that these positions were reserved for the well born and the well connected. Even in his marriage, he had exhausted himself trying to meet a TV standard of free-spirited hyper-attentive love.
One morning, Stephen rolled out of bed and vomited on the floor. Leaving the stinking puddle where it lay, he phoned the office and said he wouldn’t be in because he had vomited on the floor. The woman in HR asked why he couldn’t tough it out. Stephen suggested he come to work with a plastic bag and a bottle of Scope. The woman said that sounded like a plan. Stephen listened for even the faintest note of irony, and hearing none, he hung up the phone. He passed his wife who was running on their treadmill, noise cancelling headphones bobbing up and down. Maybe the headphones would filter the sarcasm from his greeting which she didn’t hear in any event. He flopped on the couch and stared at the ceiling and decided it was time for a mid-life crisis.
From that kernel grew a book: In Praise of Mediocrity. It had begun as a few pages he banged out half in anger half as a prank. But it gained a huge audience when a national weekly picked it up. Their editors pared it to a 500 word manifesto and, without intending it, Stephen became a Jim Jones figure fronting the Cult of So-so. Soon he had an agent and a book deal. A Ted Talk shored up his reputation. Working with a marketing team, his agent branded him Even StephenTM and his call to action started with the words: Level Down! There was a web site and social media accounts managed by people he never met and a monthly newsletter filled with suggestions of things that people of good intent should try their very best to fuck up. He went on a fifty city tour and word spread about his passionate call to slack off. By the end of the tour he was drawing audiences that could fill a concert hall.
The whole thing came crashing down when his agent phoned to say that the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce wanted to present him with an award for excellence. Stephen said he couldn’t accept the award; it was completely off-message. His agent thought about it for a minute then said he was sorry.
I guess I fucked up.
Stephen told him to chill. He never would’ve hired him as his agent if he hadn’t sensed that, somewhere deep inside, the man had the potential to orchestrate a royal fustercluck.
I picked up some good shit yesterday. Maybe I bring it over and we get wasted?
Stephen said sure. So they spent the afternoon staring at passing clouds and talking about life and, as mediocrity goes, it was a pretty okay afternoon.
