TAKING IT TO THE OUTER LIMITS

There is a boundary of performance for most endeavors that you have to reach for something to be considered as excellent. And you don’t reach it easily. It is a mark of achievement and something of which a person can truly feel proud.

It isn’t always a boundary that when reached provides you a crown. Sometimes that is true, such as with athletics, but not always. There are a lot of jobs out there a person can do and be truly great at, but have no championship ring to flash to others to prove how great they are.

All of that is naturally something I think most people understand. And I mention it mainly as foundation for the rest of my posting. Essentially that all of the above is a path to approval, admiration, respect or just a sense of self-fulfillment.

However wonderful such a juncture in life is there is for some little satisfaction is this type of achievement. They want MORE. Only the more they want exists in the “Lala land” of their dementia. They don’t want to the best at something, they want to be the best at something totally insane.

It is like being able to claim you the World Champion at collection lint. Would anyone seriously see that as a source of pride? Perhaps a reason to suggest you needed help, but hardly an achievement you would put in the same category as say being on a winning team in the Super Bowl or World Series.

I suppose that for a lot of people you might say “well yeah I can see your point, but why did you even need to mention it when it is so obvious?”

Okay granted it is an obvious observation. But I just felt a need to express it anyway. Mainly as a form of therapy for myself.

That is because in my city I encounter far too many people who are more prone to take it to the outer limits than some level of excellence. And I don’t say that with pride either. Maybe to seek a little understanding, but not pride.

So since I can purge my world of this kind of lunacy I find more comforting to at least let others know about it. That way at least I have plenty of company from people who can appreciate that having to spend my day for example in the company of a group of farmers who want to debate things like who can spread manure the best. Do I really need to be involved in such a debate? Well these guys thought so. They wanted me to judge a contest. I didn’t exactly feel that was part of my job as Mayor, but I did listen.

Only problem was that meeting came on the heel of one I had with a group of local businessmen. I thought we were going to discuss things like taxes. They wanted to discuss whether we had an adequate civil defense plan to deal with the possibility of an invasion from outer space! Do you get the picture that perhaps that didn’t go into the record books as one of my favorite days? You’d be right too. Here’s hoping you get to go for the limits, but that they are at least sane!