Average.

Accept.

Ahhh.

No sweat. We do not intend to talk you out of top Performance. All we want is to convince you that the last you need is top performance at any given time. Who tries to be top all the time might as well »topple« (allow us the play on words.) Quite surely will, too.

Never fade? Never falter? Never rest? Never stop? Always press on? Nothing else but be the best? Top performance now and forever? Sorry: Forget it. Not possible. Not wise. What's more: Not necessary. It's a perfectly flawed notion to think of success as a top marks only event. Life, work, performance, success isn't like that. We're adults now. There's no teacher to frown on our mediocre marks: »You ought to do better than that.« It's all about being prepared. And being prepared includes strategic withdrawal. Being with the rest. Try it. For now. Feel it: It's relieving. Relaxing. To be, for once, average. To allow yourself to be with the crowd. Not ahead of it. It may come as a surprise: Top athletes know it. And use it. (Not all of them, to be sure, but the smart ones.) It's their way of training, of preparing for the next big thing. Some of them do it so consequently, so convincingly, that watchers, spectators, commentators, start to wonder: What's with him? Has she lost the grip? — Of course she hasn't, no problem with him at all. They're back for the next big thing in time. Only better. Stronger. Wiser. More robust. More resilient. And more enduring. Healthier too, by the way.

This is a work of art, »Measuring the Universe«, an installation by the Slovakian Artist Roman Ondák (*1966). As a part of the artist’s presentation at New York’s Museum of Modern Art the visitors were asked to mark their body heights by writing their names along the exhibition rooms’ walls. A blurry black band along the gallery’s walls represents the spread of the visitors’ heights.

Ahhh! To be – for once – average!

We’re pretty sure about this: Success isn’t at all about comparing oneself with someone else, one own’s performance and achievements with someone else’s. Much more: To find ourselves, learn who we really are?

»My idea has always been: Be yourselves. That's what defines your true size.«

Wolfgang Rihm)
Composer