[wordup] Moderately Gifted

[Adam Shand]

From: The Eristocracy <Eristocracy at merrymeet.com>
Via:  Nev Dull <nev at sleepycat.com>

"... simply moderate giftedness has been made worthless by the printing
press and radio and television and satellites and all that. A moderately
gifted person who would have been a community treasure a thousand years
ago has to give up, has to go into some other line of work, since modern
communications put him or her into daily competition with nothing but
world's champions.

The entire planet can get along nicely now with maybe a dozen champion
performers in each area of human giftedness. A moderately gifted person
has to keep his or her gifts all bottled up until, in a manner of
speaking, he or she gets drunk at a wedding and tapdances on the coffee
table like Fred Astaire or Ginger Rogers. We have a name for him or her.
We call him or her an 'exhibitionist.'

How do we reward such an exhibitionist? We say to him or her the next
morning, 'Wow! were you ever drunk last night!'"

-- Kurt Vonnegut, "Bluebeard"