On being a chronic intermediate

Or, how I justify not being great at anything.

In one of my favorite books, The Razor’s Edge, by Somerset Maugham, is a quote I come back to every once in a while:

It's strange how many people suffer from it (fear). I don't mean fear of closed spaces and fear of heights, but fear of death and, what's worse, fear of life. Often they're people who seem in the best of health, prosperous, without any worry, and yet they're tortured by it.

When I first read this, I was very confused. Who was afraid of life? What did that even mean?

Now I understand that while most people fear not getting what they want, many also fear getting it. And at many points in their lives they’ll sabotage themselves just on the cusp of victory.

People afraid of not getting what they want are easy to understand. Sometimes, they become internally resigned to not getting it while outwardly still trying to get it, and so when they get close they do something epically stupid to self-sabotage, or just collapse. Their sense of self (as someone who does not get to win) is threatened by the possibility of success. It takes great mental resilience to overcome that.

What about people afraid of getting what they want? In my twenties my writing teacher asked me why I hadn’t published a book yet. It was a question that startled me, because I felt I was still young and had a lot of time before I would consider myself a Real Writer who published stuff. I was just ‘scribbling.’ I said I was waiting to write a great book. A wise book.

Why, she asked me, was I gatekeeping myself? I could write a different book at twenty than I did at forty. So I did. The hardest part was letting go of my own internal perfectionism that made me believe that if I wasn’t going to write the next literary sensation I shouldn’t bother.

These days I’m embracing being an intermediate at many things. Not the best, not as good as I could be if I worked harder, but reasonably good. At my job, at writing, at music and sports. Last week I tried to get into a club for a particular sport where I was interviewed pretty thoroughly—only intermediates and above allowed. I couldn’t help feeling that many would have run from that, and claimed to be a high beginner, quite out of practice, can we just have fun? But I insisted: I’m definitely an intermediate (which I was).

But embracing my intermediate status is playing into that ‘fear of life’ that I’m only now beginning to understand. Being better than intermediate can come with its own set of challenges (need to maintain status, dealing with other people’s jealousy, more anxiety and less time). I’d rather be someone who’s good (with the potential for more success in the future) than someone whose success feels undeserved or overblown.

Or maybe that’s how I justify not trying harder. After all, why haven’t I published my next book yet?

You know who’s not plagued by fear of life? Forrest Gump. Also strange that Tom Hanks played both that role and the role of Larry Darrell in the movie of The Razor’s Edge.