What is being mediocre? – 06/18/2023 – The Worst of the Week
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Mateus writes to me to know my opinion about what makes a person be or act in a mediocre way. In his email he makes it very clear: “Not what you think in theory, or based on readings, or wanting to appear erudite, or wanting to be politically correct, or full of fingers so as not to appear arrogant, but what you consider really mediocre and without thinking too much. I want you to talk to me like I’m at a bar table with you.”
The first scene that comes to my mind is me walking down a street in Ipanema. I was 28 years old, had lived in Rio de Janeiro for a few weeks and had only made one friend until then. I commented that I had shortness of breath, nausea and tachycardia.
It hadn’t been easy to leave São Paulo so suddenly. I received a proposal from an ogre who made it very clear: “Either you arrive in three days or you lose the job offer.”
Leaving out the apartment I loved, moving into a room above a restaurant (I hated the noise and the smell of grease), leaving a boyfriend, changing jobs, changing professions, staying away from all my friends, stay away from my family and start earning 1/10 of what my salary level was at the time.
The girl gave a mocking laugh and replied “go to the beach that passes”. This person was mediocre. The beach is a wonderful thing, I love it, I really feel good, but anyone who can’t delve even a little deeper when it comes to a conversation about anguish and thinks that all problems can be solved at the beach seems pretty mediocre to me.
The second scene is my uncle telling me that I wouldn’t “start a family” if I kept writing the things I write.
The third scene is me with a terrible boyfriend, in the company of his even worse friends. All friends with their respective girlfriends. At a certain point, they distance themselves from us to have more “manly” conversations: comments about politics, ironies against annoying people at work and the occasional sexual joke. For some reason, they think that people might not like or not follow the subject.
I start yelling from the room I’ve been segregated to and competing with them for the best ironies and verbal slurs. That same night, girls collide and that boyfriend breaks up with me. He was a profoundly mediocre man, friends with mediocre men who, in turn, dated mediocre girls.
Me at recess with a girl called Ana Carolina. Me saying: “Carol, I like Felipe because he’s really weird” and Carol telling me “how awful, you have to like who everyone likes or you’re the weird one”. I don’t know how sweet Ana Carolina is doing 30 years later, but she must be mediocre.
I think now of my dear friends who hate the movie “The Great Beauty”. And in other even very friendly acquaintances who love the movie “Into the Wild”. Paolo Sorrentino moved me so much with this film, so much so that I couldn’t move. I couldn’t get up from the theater chair and walk. I think it was one of the strongest cinematic experiences I’ve ever had. On the way out, I ran into a couple of friends who were indignant “what a pretentious movie, what nothing, what a lot of nonsense”. I was silent and, imagetically, forever tattooed, in neon, the word MEDIOCRE on those foreheads. I like these friends, they are not mediocre in real life. But that day they were tremendously mediocre.
And of course, they love “Into the Wild”, the most boring thing ever committed in history. The wealthy white playboy who believes he’s too transgressive just because he’s going to hug a tree and die of poison. Spare me, go pay the ticket, son.
People who say “I tried to like ‘White Lotus’ but I found it boring” or “I didn’t go through with ‘Succession’ because the characters were too mean” or “I didn’t understand the movie ‘Aftersun'” or “I don’t understand who likes Xavier Dolan” or doesn’t feel like kneeling down when Caetano Veloso or Liniker sing.
People who didn’t want to be friends with Hermann Hesse at some point in their youth. Who reads self-help about finances even knowing that Fósforo has Annie Ernoux and Hoje has Mary Gaitskill, Pedro Mairal and Vivian Gornick.
Influencers that don’t deliver any content and only sell their lifestyle. Like “I influence people to know how to set a nice navy or nautical themed dinner table.
Who wastes time with video games, shooting club, good manners course, tips for seizing a man, revelation shower, wedding rehearsal.
Bolsonaristas.
Tati Bernardi answers the most unusual questions and strangest comments from her readers. Do you want to participate in the O Pior da Semana column? Send your message to [email protected]
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