CULTIVATING MEDIOCRITY

 My unknown friend. If you want to continue without regrets, to cultivate routine and mediocrity, be guided by the following protocol:

 
Before start thinking, always inform yourself of what has to be thought, in order not to introduce into the world the smuggling of new ideas.
 
Never think with your brain - but always with the brains of others.
 
Always say yes when others say yes – no when others say no.
 
Read each morning your newspaper, to be aware of what should be thought in the next 24 hours.
 
When someone comes with new ideas, avoid it because this is a social danger, a heretic or even a terrorist.
 
Do not expose yourself to the danger of doing what the neighbour does not do - but remember the proven bourgeois wisdom: the insurance died of old age!
 
Be a dedicated friend of your comfy sofa - and do not expose yourself to dizziness when facing vast horizons.
 
Prefer always the massive walls of a jail and the cage’s grille instead of the uncertainties of stratospheric flights.
 
Never open closed doors – pass throughout open doors only.
 
Do not explore new paths, like pathfinders - always walk along customary roads and on previously aligned rails.
 
Always go with the bulk of the flock, like the obedient sheep - and do not seek a different path from the normal routine.
 
In short, illustrious supporter of mediocrity: leave everything as it is to see how it goes!

With this in mind, you will maintain the health and tranquillity of your nerves and you will be able to take your beer or cocktail each day with peace of mind - and be a good man.
 
However, if one day you decide to leave behind the traditional routine and expose yourself to the deadly dangers of a superior ideal, then read carefully what a man who knows life tells you:
 
Go to the banks of the Ganges and ask the strongest of elephants to give you their pachydermic skin, to cover your soul with it.
 
Go to the beaches of the Nile and remove from the oldest crocodile, its impenetrable armour and wrap your heart with it.
 
And after you have armoured your soul and heart, go out into this world and tell to men of honest mediocrity that you live for an ideal that is not in the stomach, nor the nerves nor in the blood - and you will see that they will declare upon you … a deadly war.
 
For, you must know, my friend, that the world does not sacrifice a single idol for a warrior of ideas and ideals.
 
Since the most daring idealist of history was crucified, dead, and buried - all idealists are crucified by the cultivators of mediocrity.
 
Nothing great happens in the world without the world revolting against the greatness of ideas and ideals.
 
All that is beautiful and great - fatally agonizes in the arms of the cross.
 
This is the glorious tragedy of the superior men.