becoming truly great - hiatus interrupted

What does it really take to move from being sub-par, or even mediocre, to being truly great? This is the question that has been weighing on my mind recently.

Take this blog for example. I have been doing it for a while. I have been truly passionate about it. I have had both the intellectual and financial capital that is required to run a blog. While I have had some really awesome engagement from some of you [ for which I’m infinitely grateful - I can’t believe how loyally some of you read this blog ], one can say the traffic has been mediocre at best - maybe even sub-par. Then you have someone give it a go for a few months to a year with (in my humble opinion) average quality content, and their traffic explodes, catapulting them to immeasurable success.  

Likewise in real life, some people truly give their endeavour everything they have, only for said endeavour to float endlessly in the sea of mundane averageness. What separates someone who wakes up every morning of their adult life and dedicates hours to the same action, but remains average at said action, and someone who just seems to come out of ‘nowhere’ and becomes the best at it?

Even more frustrating perhaps must be the best runner-ups of this world.  I call them the silver medal specialists. The Frankie Frederickses, Scottie Pippens and Hillary Clintons of this world. What separates them from the Usain Bolts, Michael Jordans and Barack Obamas?

I am determined to get to the bottom of this mystery. Since I’ve been looking into it the phrase ‘hard work’ has been coming up over and over again, but, I suspect there are other factors at play here. I have seen with my own two eyes a scenario whereby the person has definitely NOT worked hard, yet, they’ve achieved success.

Just thought I’d update you with what’s on my mind lately.  Now back to hibernation.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

olympus om-1

Image
It was World Photography Day the other day.  I picked the Olympus OM-1 as my camera for the day  mainly because I had recently acquired it. I had also been reading a bit about some photographers of note, such as Jane Brown , that used the OM-1. I was immediately impressed with the size of the thing - so small. I later learnt that it was indeed Olympus' intention to make an SLR smaller than all the existing ones with the giant prisms.  Sound familiar? That is almost exactly what is happening today with the Olympus OMD series. To quote the oracle in Battlestar Gallactica "A ll of this has happened before, and it will happen again ". My copy came with the beautiful Zuiko 50mm f1.8 MC (marcro) lens. I am familair with the Zuiko quality, but when the photos came out, I was blown away. In fact, I commented somewhere that Olympus should have named it the "Olympus OMG!". That's how good it is. The above photo of the minibus was taken in relative
Read more

How to choose your first 35mm film camera

Image
If you're a seasoned digital photographer and you use a ' real ' camera with settings and all that, then you already have all the information you need about picking a film camera. Unless you're looking for something completely different from what you already know, you can stop reading now. Just go buy a film camera, go out and shoot. You'll be fine - you already know how to use a film camera. It's the same beast, except the image is being recorded on a piece of film instead of a digital sensor. Now, for the rest of us beginners, noobs, padawans, young grasshoppers, e.t.c., here are some insights; I use affiliate links in this article from Amazon, KEH and Apple and may be compensated if you purchase via a link. I have not been sponsored by anyone. This article is based solely on my experience as camera enthusiast. Enjoy. What is 35mm Film? "Film", or photographic film refers to a thin sheet of transparent plastic coated with a photo
Read more

boots 500AF - part 1

Image
Much displeased am I to report that my nostalgia project isn’t going as smoothly as I expected. Why is it that in a mostly plastic camera, one of the only metallic parts turned out to be the least durable? The source of my said displeasure is a thin little strip of metal. Thus the story goes. Camera number 3 finally. I was excited about this one, as it was my first ‘good’ camera. Branded ‘Boots 500AF’, it has a 34mm f4.3 autofocus (hence the ‘AF’) lens. Come to think of it, both the 34mm (as opposed to 35mm) and f4.3 (rather than f4) are quite obscure values for a film point and shoot. I have no way of telling, but I assume the ‘500’ in the name denotes the maximum shutter speed of 1/500 the camera can achieve, but that’s pure speculation on my part. It has an auto flash, and the lens does a faux zoom action when turned on. Very cool indeed. I read somewhere that it was a rebranding of some Japanese camera, but again, I have found no evidence of this. Oh how
Read more