I’m sorry to be the one to share the painful truth with my fellow bloggers but the reality is, the vast majority of what we write is going to be forgotten by the world either in our own lifetimes or shortly thereafter. Yes, I know we all think we are the exception to the rule but I tend to take a more realistic view of things.
What may be even harder to accept is the fact that there are a few of our contemporaries whose works are going to live on long after they are dead. If you’ve ever watched the movie Amadeus, loosely based on the life of Mozart, you know what I’m talking about.
Woven into the movie’s depiction of the life of Mozart is the story of the Italian composer Antonio Salieri. The contrast between the lives and works of Mozart and Salieri is striking. Salieri is “blessed” with a long life during which he sees his compositions fade into obscurity. Mozart dies young and never witnesses the universal popularity that his works achieve.
Rather than give up, Salieri makes the most of it. He names himself “The Father of Mediocrity.” He makes peace with the fact that he’ll never be considered a genius and welcomes all who have come to the same realization to join his cause.
If you are still aspiring to be the next Mozart I wish you all the best. Just a word of caution though, those who do achieve legendary status usually pay a heavy price for it in their personal lives.
If you would prefer to be more realistic I hereby invite you to join my cause: mediocrity. To my knowledge, no one has taken up Salieri’s mantel as “The Father of Mediocrity”so I am volunteering to take his place although if someone else would like to be the leader of our cause I’m fine with that. Also, I prefer the title “The Patron Saint of Mediocrity” to “The Father of Mediocrity.”
You may be wondering how this all fits in with the title and tag line of my blog: Expectational: Expect Sensational. What does mediocrity have to do with sensational? I guess if you read all this about me and still want to read more of my blog then it doesn’t really matter if you think my writing is sensational or mediocre.
A picture of the very ordinary Antonio Salieri
Mirror Neurons 
Your contradictions interest me and I want to see if any side gains a definite advantage. Regarding placebos, I recently saw a TV documentary that showed something even more interesting than the placebo effect as you described it and that is that the effectiveness continued even after people were informed that it was a placebo. It didn’t matter. This may have a parallel to the studies that showed people with strong opinions often strengthened their opinions when faced with contrary facts. Think about that, verifiable facts, not opinion, had the opposite effect one would expect. Isn’t that similar to what happened with knowing about the placebo? It says something about the human mind that more of us should think about when we dig in.
I found an article about the research on line:
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2010/dec/22/placebo-effect-patients-sham-drug
I seem to remember that the book Kidding Ourselves also talks about the research that demonstrated continued effectiveness even when participants were told they were taking a placebo.