Mediocrity Sucks

I have a school friend who sort of suffers from Asperger’s syndrome. He is crazy, weird, funny and mad. In school, he was thin, fair and looked cartoon. He is terribly honest and understands only literal meaning of everything said to him. He has no feelings. My school friends had nicknamed him Mad Man. I want to tell something about him today. I don’t want to mention his name though but people who are close to me will easily know who it is.

Once when we were studying in the 9th standard, we both landed up in an argument and out of anger I had yelled at him, ‘don’t talk to me’. I didn’t mean it though.
He stopped talking to me eventually. After around 10 years, in 2005, he spoke to me only after I apologized. When I asked him why he didn’t speak to me all those years he said he had just obeyed me.

Then he was studying engineering in PESIT College Bangalore. He came to me one day asking why he was unable to get short listed in the campus interviews. He asked me what aptitude was all about and how to clear the written tests. I said that aptitude can’t be taught. It’s one’s inherent ability, more like a common sense. It mainly requires speed and accuracy along with simple, basic mathematics. I gave him names of few books viz, numericals from Agarwal, sample CAT papers, puzzles by Shakunthala Devi and George Summers.

He called me after a month. He was upset. He said he had studied all those books. That day, he had attended a recruitment written test for some company. He said he had solved all the questions correctly; still he was not short listed. Then after some inquiry, to my surprise, I got to know that he had topped in the written test and as per the company rules which had a higher cut off too, had rejected him saying he was too brilliant for the company. Greater surprise for me was when he had told he could easily solve all the problems in George Summers by himself by then. I smiled and said "Next time, please solve only 80% of the questions".

He did that the next time, got short listed in the written test but failed in the Group Discussion. He then came to me and said he wasn’t good at English and can’t speak fluent English. I referred him some books and practices. In the next few weeks he not only got a job in the campus but also started writing English poems.

After few months we both met at a friend’s place. I always called him ‘skeleton’ for his skinny body. We were pulling each other’s leg and suddenly we had a bet on who would have a better body after 3 months. Like Chatur of 3 Idiots, I challenged him, ‘after exactly 3 months we will meet here and let’s display our body then. Starting with abs, arms, chest, shoulders, back and legs. The one with the better body wins"
I enrolled myself to a gym. Worked out for one and half months and went to the same place after 3 months. I was sure that my friend couldn’t build his body so soon. I wasn’t surprised. When I looked at him he still looked a skeleton. I set off laughing and finally asked him why did he give up. Then he said calmly, ‘I started with abs. But they took lot of time. They almost took 3 months. From next week I will start arms. Yeah I think I lost the bet"
I asked him to show his abs. When he did, I exclaimed "F*** man !!"
He had a perfect 8 pack just like Bruce Lee or Amir in Gajani. I looked at him in disbelief. He said "400 to 500 crunches per day for 3 months"

He was happy with his job. One day he came again and said he never had a girl friend and asked me some help. I said, "Well, Mr Despy, I am your love guru now". I gave him some useful tips on flirting, how to woo girls and how to pretend truthful and say ‘I love you’.
And what was the result? He had wooed half a dozen girls in just one year and had great time with each of them. You know what I mean.

Then one night we were partying, he was explaining his conquests over girls. I told him, "Dude, please stick on to one girl. And never trust any guy. When it comes to girls, they are all dogs"
Little did I know that he would take the above line so seriously that he would stop trusting even me from that day.

He is getting married now. He did not invite me for his engagement nor he showed his fiancée’s photo to me. He is distancing himself from me(and may be other guys as well). I am afraid, he may not invite me for his wedding too. He thinks even I am a dog like other guys. This is so funny and frustrating at times as well. But I am not upset with him for his behavior because I know he suffers from Asperger’s syndrome.

Whatever his personal life may be, let’s ignore it. One more apology from me and he would be fine But one thing I want to say through this blog is, if you can be mad like my friend at whatever little thing you do then I am sure you will experience a thrilling and Nothing-Is-Impossible life. And results? They will definitely be beneficial to you; like a job with English poems, an eight pack abs and lots of women (I won’t approve of the last thing though) :-) Try it. It’s not that only guys with Asperger’s do it. Give your 100% effort, energy, focus, passion whatever you call it, to anything do. Work on it like a mad person even if it looks silly or foolish, reach for the skies, don’t care about anything or anybody who comes in your way and then when you are done, I am sure you would have found that there is no better way to live your life. Why all this pain? Because Mediocrity sucks!!