Long Tail - Feb 19 2023

 

Long Tail

Feb 19 2023

The first time

a teacher introduced the curve

and told us we'd be graded by comparison

it sounded fair;

wrong answers wouldn't really count

if few among us got them.

How convenient

that the curve can be shifted;

either smartened-up

or dumbed down.

The wisdom of crowds.

The tyranny

of the majority.

Bit it also means

there is nothing absolute

about knowledge;

truth

is what the plurality

say it is.

Still, the symmetry 

of the normal distribution curve

is almost metaphysical,

so many things

in nature and life

conform.

Except that  nowadays

normal is problematic;

we are all special

everyone passes,

and just because you aren't average

doesn't mean you're “abnormal”

or to be judged.

Which is good,

because no one's truly average

in everything,

and normal

is a suffocating box

that demeans difference

and belittles originality.

And the long tail

that can go on and on;

ever fewer of us

crouching underneath,

crowded together

in a shrinking space

as the curve inexorably descends.

Statistical anomalies,

so far from the norm

we breathe different air,

pass through the the world

as if transparent.

And then, at its very end

find we're by ourselves.

A constituency of one,

unique

and idiosyncratic.

Which we all really were

from the start.