The Mountain Top Syndrome

Who am I to tell you absolutely anything about how you ought to live, behave, act or exist? Fuck you — is what I would say at some point if I were you. What I can do, though, is to express my own take on the world based on the experiences that shape me, as I go along this long and meandering path, and shut off my inner preacher.

And instead of preaching, I can aim to relate with you.

Communal dishonesty

Do you know the feeling when you sense that something is not right, but you can’t really articulate it? Sometimes that means losing an argument. But what’s most important is that this might pave the road to a constant state of doubt in one’s feelings and judgments. Not good.

As I observe what people share on the platforms in virtual reality, I often get this feeling of fakeness. Now, this is hard to unpack, even to my own self. It’s as if the imposter-ness that’s on the other side of the screen translates deeply onto my psychic territory. It very well may be just my own projections onto whatever I read and see. But I can’t shake the feeling that it’s somehow related to the strive for the top.

As people exhibit themselves in a community, they also observe other people. Consequently, they compare their creative or simply social output to other people’s in the community. It’s a natural and mostly unconscious process. As I touched on before, that gives way to a be better than your neighbor type of outlook. What made us believe that people are going to strive to the top with 100% honesty in the first place?

Now, this might be pointing out the obvious, but before diving into deep psychology we should dissect the apparent and seemingly unquestionable realities.

About Joanne

To avoid pointing fingers and saying you, me or we, let’s talk about the hypothetical character to whom we might all hopefully relate to: Joanne.

A large portion of the pictures on Instagram, videos on YouTube, and articles on Medium have dishonest titles. Clickbait. And that’s just the title, it’s very likely that the content itself is also not sin-free. It seems as though if the motive of the creator is recognition, money, or success (whatever that means), the content suffers greatly. Because the creator becomes focused on getting to the top, creating something better than the other person, getting more attention, views or reads, and not focused on creating the best work possible. Joanne is most surely guilty of that.

This is a pernicious outlook. It twists and infects creativity. And it also poisons the mind. Joanne doesn’t realize anymore, that as she’s creating something, she’s also oriented on getting to that top (which is normal, right?). She tells herself that she’s focused on creativity and getting her ideas out there, but the fired-up aspirant dripping saliva for that number one place hides in the mist and does shady work behind her back.

Actually, it’s Joanne herself who hid the crook in the shadow. At least she did so the first time she noticed the shadows moving, now she’s just unconscious of the fact. The proud achiever doesn’t care about the creative output, his focus is on getting ahead of everyone. So Joanne takes her quill and continues writing her magnum opus, while the snake hiding in the shadow makes her do things not for the sake of creating her best work, but for the egoistic purpose of being on the mountain top above everyone else, feeding off the attention and praise.

But it doesn’t work that way, the way of the snake is not sustainable. Eventually, the one who cheated his or her way to the top is exposed and stripped of all the undeserved fame and glory.

And at some point, Joanne will realize, that it’s quite lonely on that mountain top. Despite all these glowing eyes staring with love and desire for her, there’s nobody to relate to. Nobody to talk to or share her joy and sadness with. Strangely, only now this soul ache has become apparent to her. And she can’t treat it with the roses at her feet, or the strength of the mountain beneath her, or the magnificent views before her, that are as far away from her as everyone else in her life.

The goal and the process

The milked to death question: which is more important, the goal or the process? I mean, I’m pretty convinced that it’s the process, but let’s just say that I think that it’s the process. There are countless reasons to prove my point. Let’s go through a couple of them.

If Joanne climbs a mountain having her eyes fixated on the peak, she’s going to trip and eventually fall down, perhaps hit her head on a rock and die in the process. Because she can’t see the next step she’s about to make.

If she writes a book, composes music, or draws a portrait thinking about how she’s going to hold the final creation in her hands, the praise and the money or anything related to the final piece externalized, she’s shifting focus from the moment when she’s creating the piece itself to the end goal. The fact of the matter is, she’s not focused on making the goal itself a reality. It’s in the least unproductive and inefficient.

You live and you die. You wanna focus on death? Live your best life because death will come either way.

Let’s suppose you dislike the goal but like the process. Well, eventually, you’re going to get there, because you’re writing that book or sculpting that statue, regardless if you give a damn about the final result. But if you dislike the process and like the goal, well, you’re not going to get the goal, because it’s the process that gets you there.

This is the kindergarten level of understanding of these things that gets throbbed down our rusty pipes and forgotten as we gain years of “wisdom”.

Taking a few steps back

Now, this is such a broad topic of discussion, because there are reasonable arguments for both sides.

Will you stay in the gray forever if you don’t strive for the top?

Will you achieve your best creative work if you focus strictly on what you love to do?

As with everything in life, ultimately it’s about the balance. But you can’t necessarily take any two opposing things operating in a system and place them with equal pressure against each other. There has to be a specific asymmetry between them for the dynamic to work in practice. What is that asymmetry? Well, that’s the nut that we’ll try cracking in the upcoming future.

It’s a tough one, and feel free to jump into the discussion. However, I do feel that the prime focus has to be on creativity, and everything else will follow as a consequence.

Hello fellow beautiful mole, throbbed down the pipeline! My name is Elliott, and I’m just reporting the latest news from up above the underground. Here in the catacombs, we issue a good dose of intellectual masturbation.

The Electric Pipeline is providing a perspective on the psychological human state and its dynamics, where the world’s heading, and what can the (wo)man in the mirror do about it. Thanks for reading and see you around!