Moreover, I would encourage my fellow Cs to accept and celebrate their C-ness.
We Cs are in a class by ourselves. We are the ones truly at the top of the famous Bell Curve that gives social scientists such fits.
While they try to define what intelligence is and who exactly has most of it, we Cs sit back content, knowing that whatever type of intellectual yardstick they come up with, we will be right in the middle.
You know how a Bell Curve works, right? It is a line in the shape of a bell or a hillside. The first part of the Bell Curve depicts the intelligence-challenged, the slackers, the brain dead, intellectual crash dummies; in short, the Fs.
On the other side of the Bell Curve are the super-intelligencia, the brainiacs, the cream of the cortex; in other words, the As. On the sides you find the Bs and Ds.
At the top of the curve the Cs reside in all their glory. We are average Joes and Joannes, who, despite our best efforts or most pitiful shortcomings, always find ourselves pretty much right there in the middle.
I used to think it was a sad thing to be a C. In school, there were days when suddenly all of my meager cognitive and intellectual powers somehow aligned in a harmonic convergence of crystallized thought and I managed to answer 90 percent of questions on a test correctly. But on these days, the rising tide of intelligence seemed to float all test scores. So the teacher would erect the rigid frame of the Bell Curve over the test results and even my 90 percent was not good enough to push me down the Curve toward A-ness. Or even B-ness. The Curve kept me in my C-section.
Oh, but on other days, when the intellectual tide ebbed, it dragged us all along. And on those days I was elated to find that my 65 percent was enough to beach me high and dry on the top of the Bell Curve. On those days I learned to love the curve. I learned to love being a C.
I came to accept my C-ness. As I looked around, I realized that I was in fairly good company. Cs, as a group, are a pretty likeable bunch of lunkheads. From our vantage point on the top of the curve, we can see both sides of just about any argument. We generally aren't anal retentive about achieving spectacular success or excessively bothered by the specter of failure. Indeed, we are shielded from either.
THAT is not to say that Cs don't occasionally get As and Bs. We do. But it is in C subjects like "Soils" and "Art Appreciation." And the true As resent us for trying to act smart.
Unlike As, we aren't experts in anything in particular. We don't have the discipline or energy to focus on a single thing that long. On the other hand, we don't dwell on our disappointments.
Cs know a little about a lot of things. We are well-rounded, so to speak.
The best companies are owned by Cs. They are smart enough to hire As to do all the work.
Being a C doesn't mean you can't be successful. I used to think that Dan Quayle was the patron saint of all Cs. Here was a card-carrying C who rose to the second-highest office in the land. Then Bill Clinton, the king of all Cs, claimed the White House, and, well, there went the neighborhood.
I could go on and on about Cs. I could go into the the great C figures in history, like Bat Masterson, who won fame in the Wild West only to blow it and die a drunken newspaperman.
I could talk about Cs who made average breakthroughs in science. And Cs who placed third in major sporting events.
But that would be just a little too much work. So I think I'll end the column right here while it's only worth a C.
