The ordinary man is no longer a latent flame;
A man walking courageously on a middle path
Between knowing and restraint.
He is now simply a statistic…
A subordinate to all that we’ve come to glorify.

The ordinary man today,
Wears his ordinariness like a costume
To feign helplessness and weakness
He uses his common man status
as an excuse to escape from responsibility.

But true ordinariness is an extraordinary thing.
It isn’t about invisibility and conformity
Neither is it a clever strategy of deference
To gain favours and honours
From self-proclaimed saviours and gods.

The ordinary has immense power
Simply because it is capable of plain speak
In the face of raging rhetoric.
It is just as capable of saying no
As it is being agreeable and saying yes.

In being ordinary, one understands the difference
Between the necessary and the excessive.
One is able to accept difficulty squarely
Without running away or escaping
in meaningless distractions and pointless schemes.

Ordinariness is like the alaap
That pulls together intelligence and emotion
Into an enduring harmony.
The ordinary is mastery over life
Through integration, not exception.