From Captain Capitalism, Aaron Clarey:
“The vast majority of humans are about as valuable as individual atoms of hydrogen, a lump of coal, or the unearthed and unrefined ore of iron. They are worthless, they are pointless, they will never amount to or achieve much of anything. Out of the estimated 150 billion humans who have lived and died on this planet, a mere 10,000 are the ones who made history and set forth humanity on the path it is today.”
Diamonds, Steel and Stars (the article from which the above came) is definitely worth a read. In fact, it should be mandatory reading for every adolescent — even if only 0.00005% of them actually do what the article suggests.
Well now I don’t feel so bad about being in the last chapter of my life and having not achieved fame and fortune as the odds were against me all along. Thing is, I wish I’d known 50 years ago that I would always be a poor white sharecroppers child and there was nothing I could do about it, maybe I wouldn’t have tried so hard. How in the fuck did I get old so fast?
I think all the mediocrity mentioned in his article comes down to risk aversion.
Doing what everyone else does is very low risk. Achievement requires risk.
Most people are unwilling to devote time and energy to anything that does not produce immediate gratification. Which is how you end up working 9 to 5 until you retire with a boatload of credit card and student loan debt.
In order to excel, you have to make yourself extra-ordinary, and be willing to risk not being part of the wage/debt slave herd.
I think he has the right idea but he’s off by an order of magnitude or two. He needs to add a couple of zeros. The top 0.1% would be 150 million. He also fails to note that those at the top can only get and stay there by directing the efforts of those below them.