Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Musings on mediocrity.

September 26, Tinley Park.

The recent success of a photographer friend of mine has had me musing about coming to terms with my own failures yet again.
Coming to term with my mediocrity is a theme I've grappled with often in the past, each time hoping I had finally settled it for good only to see it raising its ugly head again at the first opportunity, as in the next time an acquaintance or a friend reaches new heights, and being a graduate of one of the best photojournalism schools in the nation, that sort of thing tends to happen often.  Scott Lewis, winning at the foremost photojournalism international contest, Brian Storm, running the hottest multimedia studio in the United States, Mary Beth Meehan's cover photo and story running in one of the most fashionable photography magazines in France.
I stop making dinner to run outside and take a picture of Kody, one of the animal helpers, and later post it online.
Dinner wasn't bad.
Ah but the choices we make or is it the ones we didn't make, and coming to terms with them once and for all.  Letting go of the old longings, or is it the old envy - and I am reminded of the Gore Vidal quote about dying a little every time a friend of his was successful, and I laugh.  That, and also reminded that life, love are just the opposite, knowing how not to cling to one's own needs but to embrace other people's infinity.

1 comment:

Susabelle said...

But then again, success is measured in so many ways. If you're envious of others, it means you are allowing your doubts to tell you how to live. You have to be your own person, without comparison, without self-guilt and without giving yourself unreasonable goals. You are an individual, your own person, and your success is going to be very different from someone else's success. Enjoy your life, your boys, your adventures, they are wonderful things and you are much admired by many (including myself!!). :)