Friday, February 7, 2014

QOTD - Excellence does not factor


"Excellence is doing your best at what you do best." Cathleen Black, American businesswoman
Okay. I can accept that. But, in considering this from the Keep Calm and Carry On perspective, I think this quote must be annotated with the observation that excellence is neither a guarantee nor even a condition of success.

Also, it should be noted that "excellence" applied to a negative context is not laudable. For example, I give you the slice of history recently dramatized as The Wolf of Wall Street. The people whose lives are the subject of that film were surely "excellent" at sales, at understanding the financial market and at taking the emotional temperature of their time and place. The hundreds of others whose money they stole and whose lives were damaged or even ruined by this can hardly be expected to applaud that excellence. 

Interesting. This has just made me notice how often Scorcese and DiCaprio use their own artistic excellence to shed some light on historic characters whose excellence was negatively diverted. 



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