Who are ordinary people?
Ordinary people are the majority. They follow similar well-trodden paths set by their families, walked by their peers, leading to a familiar destination.
They have some lows and highs, but like a magnet, they tend to get pulled back to the middle, where the rest of the penguins are, safe and sound in the middle of the ice, where the experiences are familiar and well-known.
Ordinary people go with the flow. They do what is needed to get by while staying comfortable. They indulge in pleasures whenever they are not forced to be productive by another force. They like dessert, even when it isn’t earned through the uncomfortable but fulfilling pursuit of mastery.
Ordinary folk don’t use their domains of body, mind, or spirit to create or grow. Instead, they use their domains to earn a meager amount of freedom to pursue pleasure. They are often not conscious of their bodies, minds, or spirits. They don’t know themselves.
Like a rolling stone, the ordinary go where the wind takes them.
When ordinary folk have freedom, they spend it pursuing comforts and pleasures. They do the bare minimum of what is expected of them from others, like employers, spousal duties, familial duties, etc.
Ordinary people are not productive because they want to improve at something; their productivity is a requirement to support their pursuits of pleasure.
When ordinary people work, whether for themselves or for others, they clock out on time, every time, unless they need to work longer to secure future comforts that are threatened by some external force. They tend to make a job their life to distract from their lack of purpose.
Distraction in the form of pleasures and comfort keeps the ordinary, ordinary.
If pleasure and comforts are the goal, then ordinary is the path. This lifestyle will not be fulfilling, but ordinary people don’t meditate on their inevitable deaths, nor do they think deeply enough to consider how to use their gift of life.
When ordinary people face death, they cling to life; they rationalize with death, and they plead, because an ordinary life is not a truly lived life.
Anyone can be extraordinary(extra+ordinary) at anything that can be done, if they choose to.
Ordinary people get by, shuffling through time like the living dead.
A fine life is just that. Fine. Fine will never be fulfilling.
The gift of life must not be wasted; it must be used for more.
The ordinary plateau
The ordinary plateau is the peak of the bell curve, also known as the mode. The default setting.
If exceptional individuals are the tip of the spear or the bell curve, the ordinary people are at the peak of the bell curve, AKA the ordinary plateau.
Extraordinary people override default settings. All individuals are capable of being extraordinary, no matter their circumstances. Being exceptional is a choice. All you have to do, is decide what you want to do, and do it.
If you do the bare minimum, you get the ordinary. If you do extra, you get extraordinary. It has been like this since the beginning of time.
The ordinary plateau is the plateau of comfort. Comfort is where mankind goes to plateau.
Those living on the ordinary plateau do not consciously think about mastery or pursue it. Instead, they fight to stay on the ordinary plateau, where it’s safe, where they won’t be judged too harshly or too positively, or be seen at all.
Life is a gift and the pursuit of ordinary is the rejection of that gift.
Ordinary people fight to stay on the ordinary plateau; being at the left tail of the bell curve is dangerous, while being at the right tail requires pursuing mastery, whereas the ordinary want to pursue pleasure.
Ordinary people know this game in their hearts; even if they aren’t aware of their knowledge of the game to stay on the ordinary plateau, they play the game.
The exceptional seek to bring hardships upon themselves so they may build mental and spiritual calluses.
The most comfortable life is on the plateau, and the ordinary pursue comfort.
Those who fall off the back of the ordinary plateau suffer for it. They experience hardship for it. The left tail of the bell curve is neglected, partially because they neglect themselves. Those who are apathetic towards life receive apathy from life in return.
The thousand-year life
If science, God, or something else somehow gave mankind a thousand-year-long lifespan, the ordinary would still be ordinary.
Extra time does not provide additional time to pursue fulfillment for the ordinary because the ordinary pursue comfort.
No matter how long your life is, it will not be fulfilling if you live on the comfortable but barren ordinary plateau.
If ordinary people were granted thousand-year lifespans, and exceptional individuals who pursue fulfillment retained standard lifespans, the exceptional individuals would achieve much more in 1/10 of the time.
Long lifespans are wasted on those who pursue pleasure.
Ordinary people set their sights on comfort. Comfort keeps them away from fulfilling lives, and they waste their lives in pursuit of it.
The pursuit of pleasure & comforts does not mean ordinary people are bad people, but they can be, because the pursuit of pleasure can be vile. They are non-blooming people, meaning they never fully show themselves to the world; a longer lifespan would not change this.
A flower with the potential to bloom, but refuses to do so, is one of the saddest things in the world.
Ordinary people may or may not be doom-spreading people, or those who are depressed and wish to infect others with their depression or other disease of the mind or spirit.
Many ordinary people are perfectly happy and morally good, as long as nothing happens to their pleasures.
Unhappy ordinary people can be beacons of positivity for others, while they neglect themselves, hiding behind a mask of positivity because they don’t want to bother others, or themselves with their dis-eases; this word can sometimes be understood better when broken apart.
Ordinary individuals can be exceptional if they choose to. Choosing to pursue mastery removes comfort as the goal, introduces voluntary hardship, but with the struggle of voluntary hardship comes meaning, belonging and fulfillment in an unfamiliar world that leads to death no matter what path you walk.
If fulfillment is pursued, an individual will not be ordinary.
It’s impossible to be an ordinary person if you pursue mastery and fulfillment, no matter your lifespan.
Getting off the ordinary plateau
The saddest thing about ordinary people is their lack of awareness of their individual and collective potential.
If ordinary people would choose to pursue fulfillment, or if the ordinary plateau could band together, they could tap into their unlimited problem-solving abilities.
If a problem exists, a solution exists; if no solution exists, then it is not a problem.
Those at the rightmost of the bell curve who have power and Machiavellian or sociopathic tendencies manipulate the ordinary to prevent them from rebelling, fearing their power if the ordinary could unite. This has been true throughout all of history.
Those who pursue fulfillment can be bad people. The bigger their ambitions and the more manpower it requires to reach, they more likely they are to recruit the ordinary for their purposes, which may or may not be bad for the ordinary, whether they know it or not.
Often, the ordinary themselves fear their individual and collective power, because change means leaving the ordinary plateau.
If you look for this, you will see it everywhere.
Being ordinary is the choice to pursue comfort instead of fulfillment. If you want to leave the ordinary plateau, you have to slide down the front of the ice.
The ordinary have to let go of the plateau. They can slide off the back of the plateau where they will become addicts to a pleasure that is not comforting, or another calamity.
Sliding off the back of the ordinary plateau is giving up. Apathy towards life is spiritual surrender.
Sliding down the front of the ordinary plateau is spiritual awakening.
To stop being ordinary, to live a life of balanced and rewarding fulfillment, you must make the choice to pursue fulfillment in Body, Mind, and Spirit(BMS). You can make this choice now. You can make it in a year. Or you can make it shortly before your death, when time runs out.
Do not fear death; fear a living a life that was never lived.
The best time to be extra-ordinary is now.
