The rule of the mediocre and quasi- experts

Image generated with OpenAI’s DALL·E based on a text prompt by the author.

There’s an old adage- in the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king (no offence meant to the differently abled). We seem to be living in such times, what with the internet allowing anybody and everybody to hold forth with their expansive views on everything. There is not even a hint of the imposter syndrome, especially among what are termed as Gen Z, as if these are mutants from a faraway planet.

Everybody is all about swagger and attitude based on thin air and nonsensical ideas and notions. Have you ever tried to have a meaningful conversation with the semi-literates who masquerade as customer service personnel for leading companies and organisations? You are guaranteed to tear out your hair in despair. Then there is the rash of so called influencers spewing wisdom like they know anything other than their own names.

If you happen to live in the most populous country in the world, you can easily rack up millions of simpletons with the brain power of fungi as your followers and have what you imagine are scintillating intellectual exchanges that have the brilliance of a shrub. The TV channels these days seem to have hired what seem to be high school drop outs who are sent all over the world to send in their reports in what is an approximation of English and the most provincial of Hindi.

One of the reasons that run of the mill shallow people do so well in back-end jobs at overseas technology firms is the fact that these require them to be compliant and sufficiently competent to carry out mundane routine tasks according to set guidelines and rules. Such people possess a rudimentary aura that positions them as quasi-experts who can be relied upon to efficiently carry out tasks that many first-world employees would not undertake. This does not take away from the scores of genuinely outstanding individuals from the region, who have made it to the top echelons of some of the best known corporations in the world.

These are the exceptions, we should have had many more of, but instead we are drowning in an ocean of poorly educated (in real terms, not fancy degrees from fancy colleges and universities that sprang up overnight) boors who know very little, but think that they are the salt of the Earth. Talking loudly, dropping litter wherever they please, driving rashly, not respecting anybody’s space, cutting lines, and generally being intolerant to anyone else’s needs, but their own, these legions of nincompoops make even a slightly thinking person wonder if this is what life is about.

Creating a ruckus at concerts, beaches, pristine forests, river beds, and overseas tourist destinations is seen as a birth right by such people, never mind the disgust and contempt with which the world might view them. Do such people ever take time out and question as to what it might take to become distinguished individuals with an evolved and nuanced world view? Maybe they could read real literature from around the world instead of mindlessly doom scrolling on their phones, consuming senseless, mind-numbing, vapid content that progressively erodes their minds of any sense.

Imagining yourself to be the best in the world because you don’t know better is exactly what traps millions of youngsters in soul-sapping mediocrity. They might say all the cool things like they are following their passion and all that, but are they actually? I mean, if you are not willing to put in the hard work required to improve and enhance your worldview and awareness of the real nature of things, you will live out your life not realising how wonderfully diverse the world and its different cultures are. Work on every aspect of your life-how you speak and dress, your table manners, the people you associate with, the kind of content you consume, and your world view. Break away from the quasi-expert/mediocre life trap.