Nassim Nicholas Taleb introduces a useful distinction between two world “provinces,” Mediocristan and Extremistan.[1] The former is uneventful and subject to regular expectations, while the latter is the domain of the Black Swan, which is an outlier that hides outside of these expectations, carries an extreme impact, and becomes understandable only after its occurrence.[2] “Intellectual, scientific, and artistic activities belong to the province of Extremistan,” he points out, “with a very small number of winners claiming a very large share of the pot.”[3] That is me, it flashes through my mind as soon as I stumble upon this line. All three of me, to be a bit more precise.

Addendum (October 13, 2016)

All three of me? It took me quite a while to understand this piece and its title when I stumbled upon it purely by chance. Intellectual, scientist, and artist? Counting myself among a very small number of winners claiming a very large share of the pot in these three disparate fields puzzled me most, I must admit. As I read this piece over and over again, I kept shaking my head in utter confusion. Extremistan? The best I could come up with by way of an explanation was that this piece was about the future, when my Residua, as well as a whole bunch of selections from it, would be discovered at last. Highly improbable though it was, that glorious future was my only hope, anyhow. In the end, I figured out that I was only poking fun at myself in this piece. Phew!

Footnotes

1. The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, London: Penguin, 2010 (first published in 2007), p. 26.

2. Op. cit., p. xxii.

3. Op. cit., p. 85.