Segregated Buses and Redefined Realities

Abstract

As we have argued throughout this discussion, excellence is a category of exceptional achievement that humans pursue via our capacity for agency. All humans have a capacity for agency, but we don’t all choose to activate our agency to the same extent. Some people are relentlessly high achievers, while others prefer to kill time playing video games. We measure excellence by the degree to which motivated agents succeed in transcending longstanding barriers to achievement, such as surmounting Mount Everest, running a sub-four minute mile, achieving heavier-than-air aviation, or making boot prints on the moon. Te characters that history remembers most fondly are generally highly motivated agents who have also benefited from the six sociological success factors that we elaborated upon earlier: Preparation, Adversity, Innovation, Obstinacy, Serendipity, Notoriety.