Online gaming is exceedingly popular. From apps that feature games such as "Angry Birds" to elaborate games where people can create their own avatars, gaming is big business. An acquaintance of mine has over one thousand hour "credits" built up in his avatar world. He recently explained how the avatar world works. I found his explanation to be, at once, fascinating and complicated. Not my proverbial cup of tea but diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks.
Not too long ago I composed a posting about "Angry Birds" and how astonished I was at its popularity with such a wide age-range. Grandparents play alongside their grandchildren on a regular basis with no seeming end to the ever-popular game that features brightly colored angry avians.
Some humans treat life like a game, acting more like avatars than real participants who are willing to roll up sleeves, digging in to produce excellent or superior results. I imagine that performing your job as if you are an avatar is most definitely easier than actually producing stellar outputs. A real-life avatar can be like an alter-ego, acting as a fallback to blame for poor performance, lack of preparation, substandard standards, and inferior skill sets necessary to rise anywhere remotely above mediocre. The amazing part of real-life avatars is that they manage, in many cases, to fool the public, their peers, and, unfortunately their superiors. When did mediocre become the new good, above average or excellent? When did we, as a society, decide to accept mediocrity on a regular basis? Is the poor, below average, average, mediocre, above average, excellent and superior spectrum falling into the same black hole that the grading system in the U.S. has deteriorated into? Are inflated grades just another symptom of wide-spread acceptance of mediocrity? I fervently hope not. And, I hope and pray that the mediocre "bug" never finds me. You can call me by many names, most of which I have heard before, but the one moniker that I wish to never hear associated with my name is "Mediocre".
Please, don't send your avatar to work. Either get out your "A" game or do not bother showing up.
Ancora imparo
