Continuation HERE (admission: has a bite to it and, hopefully, a hold as well)

Is “average” all that average?
An “…Average Girl” blog triggered this (for me, unchracteristically temperamental) 2-post rant that had been building up to an explosion thanks to people getting into the habit of declaring Inexceptionality, including in social media like WP.

Is the “average” statement objective–honest, self-ironic–self-censoring, self-defensive–preventive… Or belligerent–rebellious vis a vis the dominant stereotypes of “success”, “beauty”, “hi IQ”,… AND the criteria thereof, which shape the cybernetic (in the etymological “steering”/”controlling” sense) moulds crushing and ripping through bodies, minds and hearts that “unfortunately”, “somehow”, don’t quite “fit”, “belong” wherever~whenever~ however…?

Every.Single.Person who was and will ever be born Is.Special, and building first-last~top-bottom~most-least invidious, dichotomous, (self-)destructive hierarchies generates unfulfillment, scarily-easily scalable to resentment, bitterness and beyond…, which is epistemologically-axiologically and, if you like, morally wrong! On the analogy of “Black Is Beautiful”,

I submit: “Average” Is “Amazing”!  (formulation as ES principle)

A few What-if’s
Aren’t self-esteem and another’s worth a question of discovering – AND, to start with, tenaciously searching for – what your own Uniqueness is, and not hindering, on the contrary, respecting, and ideally, believing in and supporting others in their own quest?!

What if a competitive attitude wasn’t expected of the “successful” nor was it a sure path to societal recognition? Conversely, what if having talent and receiving praise by some didn’t turn one into a lighting rod for the destructive attitude of others?

If what each and every one of us could think~be~do entailed a non-replicable amalgam which was not in the face of but seen as benefitting others in one way or another, an “average” disclaimer would not be necessary as a way of declaring non-aggression, conveying good will, demonstrating likeability.

In my ES book, the AverageIsAmazing principle applies to both biotic and abiotic nature at large – every kitten, lion cub, tiger lily, grain of sand are unique and special, just for the fact of their existence – see posts ES Just Turned 3… and Jim Denevan’s Mayfly Perfection….

Things in Visual Perspective?
Scaling up from hypo-planetary physics, such as members of the global eco-system, and going for the macro-units of the universe, galaxies, here’s a funny thought to ponder:

How can one justify calling a galaxy “average”?

  • The Milky Way, our “home” galaxy
  • Other galaxies, spread throughout (pretty much) All Known Existence; A galactic foretaste–the Colliding Spiral Galaxies of Arp 271–that I promise does not help determine an (aesthetic, at least) “average”, since the images from the links above are no less “amazing”:
    • Galaxies also collide

    Arp 271 Galaxies: Gemini Observatory, GMOS-South, NSF (USA)

    Looping back to the level of planets, How “average” vs “amazing” is our own? NASA’s Earth Photo Gallery.

    Links for Venus, Mars… ANYONE?

    Continuation HERE (admission: has a bite to it and, hopefully, a hold as well)