ON MISANTHROPY

This idea was pitched to me on reddit after I offered my perspective in light of recent events.  Particularly when people voiced concern on the fact it seemed like there were a LOT of terrible humans in the strength training world, as the accounts of popular athletes had become flooded with comments filled with racism, hatred, ignorance, etc etc.  The perspective I offered is that humanity, by and large, is awful, to the point that there are, in fact, MORE awful humans than non-awful humans.  This means that, whenever you take a sampling of humanity, you’re going to have a sampling of primarily awful people, to INCLUDE when you make that sampling by sub-dividing it by common interest.  There are a lot of awful people in the powerlifting community because it’s compose of humans, and humans are awful, there are a lot of awful people in the running community because it’s compose of humans, etc etc.  I’m definitely willing to admit that some activities attract even MORE awful people than others, but reality has to be understood that, in the majority of cases, you’re going to be surrounded by more awful people than not-awful people.  In addition, as an activity grows in popularity, it attracts more people, which means that even if the ratio of awful to not awful people remains the same, the sheer fact remains that there are now MORE unique awful people occupying the sphere of that activity, so the voices will grow in terms of diversity even if the message remains the same.  So what do we do with that information?

I just wanted to take a moment to point out that strongman became an awful sport to be a fan of once these two dudes brought in a lot more fans

For starters, let’s start talking about averages.  Products of the American education system have been sadly mislead on this concept as a result of our grading conventions.  From a very early age, we’re taught that 70% is average, which is, of course, insane.  Scoring in the top 70% of something is clearly ABOVE average, as average is what falls in the middle of a stratum: meaning it’s 50%.  This paradigm has given a false understanding of what it means to be average, with many feeling that the average are those that fall within the top 30%, when, in truth, the “average” human is a high F on the grading scale.  And from there, no human has better summed up the issue of averages than George Carlin, who said “think of how stupid the average person is, and realize that half of them are stupider than that.”  So again, when calibrating what you think to be an average person, realize you most likely need to dial it down 20%, and from THERE factor in that there’s significant amount of the population that exists below THAT.

This becomes relevant in the discussion of comparing oneself to the average.  It becomes all too easy to suddenly develop quite the ego when one compares themselves to the average and finds that they are excelling.  This is how you’ve got “fitness influencers” that have trained for 3 months selling diet and training programs, kids on reddit simultaneously answering AND asking questions in the “daily stupid question” thread, dudes disagreeing with elite level coaches, etc etc.  Once again, it gets interesting when you think about the numbers.  The average human is simply lazy, and does no exercise nor pays any mind to their nutrition (they have many other failings from laziness as well, to include academic rigor, political education, etc etc, but for this blog we focus on the physical).  If one were to simply exercise for 10 minutes a day, they create SIGNIFICANT distance between themselves and the average (50% and below) human.  The lesson to take from that ISN’T that one should be proud of exercising 10 minutes a day, but that, instead, one should take no pride in being simply better than the average.  The average is poor competition: one needs to stratify themselves amongst those that actually showed up to compete.

It's not a boxing match if the other guy doesn't know he's fighting

This becomes relevant in the discussion of standards.  Strength standards are the popular ones, but really any exercise standard applies.  People are quick to assert themselves as X class of lifter (almost always intermediate, but these days people are saying bizarre things like “advanced beginner” and “early intermediate” and it’s honestly blowing my f**kin mind) because they assert “Compared to the average person, I’m quite strong”.  As we understand, the average person ISN’T competition.  They’re not trying.  You compare yourself to the average person when you want to feel better about yourself: you compare yourself to the hard working people when you want to BE better.  And this isn’t about humility: if you are strong, be PROUD of being strong, don’t meekly hide behind some shield of “aw shucks”.  But also, be aware of yourself and understand that simply being above the average of humanity is an easy accomplishment: it’s being above the average OF the above average that is noteworthy.

For fundamentally, this has been the crux of my own misanthropy: failed realization of potential.  What makes humanity tragic is that it has SO much potential to live up to, and regularly fails to even realize it has said potential, let alone attempt to explore it. Laziness, ignorance, indifference, etc etc, the “sins of omission” of humanity, for they are sins of failing to act.  Hell, I’ll even admire hedonism, so long as it’s PURSUED with passion and in earnest by the hedonist: at least they dedicate themselves to realizing SOME of their potential as a human.  But to simply have the ability to, in some way, be better and not pursue it, and instead remain in that 50% or lower, is quite frankly a crime against humanity itself.  Many continue to actively set the standard of the denominator lower and lower to the point that the most paltry of accomplishments start to stand out as amazing, which allows for the potential for one to easily accomplish “super human” feats if they were so inclined.  This is “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” in reverse: the UNDERMAN is coming. 

Watch for the signs...

Strive to meet your own standards that completely exclude “the average” of humanity.  Don’t let the mere sharing of common species dictate your denominator: strive for accomplishment AMONG the accomplished.