Do I Want to be Better

     I didn't set out to be a great writer, or even a good writer. I just set out to be a writer. If you, my hypothetical reader, are reading this and thinking that I completely suck at this, I wouldn't be happy, but I wouldn't really be surprised. I'd like to think I'd be okay with it, once the pain wore off. 

     As someone who set out to be mediocre, I'm frightened by the level of mediocrity that those at the top exhibit. I know people reach the top for all sorts of reasons, many of them have nothing to do with talent, but it still feels wrong to see the truth in action. Like I don't want to own Twitter, but I can't help but feel like I'd do a better job than Elon Musk. 

    I want to be better. I want to believe I can go a lot farther, as a person and as a writer, than I currently am. But when I look at the people who lead us I can't help but wonder if I've already hit a wall. 

    How do you know that you're a good person if you can't trust the judgement of those around you? I want to think I've gotten better as a writer over the past year I've been blogging, but I have no way of judging that, and I'm beginning to think that even if I had an audience I'd have no way of knowing the truth. Even now, plenty of people are saying that Elon Musk is a genius, even though the consensus is that you'd have to be stupid to believe them. 

     I don't even know how I want to get better. I don't know what better would even look like. I keep thinking that all the parts we thought were important were lies, lies that were held together by this strange belief that not believing in them was wrong somehow. There's a chance I could be wrong, that somewhere at the bottom of society there's a truth we all believe in, that there's a story holding our world together. But I don't see it anymore. What story even could hold our world together now?

    But when I face the truth, all I see is a single question; do I want to be better, or just different?