There is an intuition that there may come a time where these humble beginnings become, not a liberating, but a limiting factor, in the pursuit of all that could be, of all that is yet to come.

We are who we are because of our circumstances. But circumstances don't matter that much. Possibilities do, and since there are infinite possibilities for things to happen, for things to be created, life is infinitely great and, important.

The point is that local maximas might just be too alluring, and fundamentally pessimistic. And I am scared of them.

I (believe) am more optimistic than the average person. Optimistic about my own future, and the future of our civilization (though only if I and we work towards it)

But there is a gap in my worldview, and this gap brings forth a kind of subtle pessimistic/cynical outlook on life. Which is that I don’t yet understand how people can accept mediocrity, and how people can even encourage it. But there has to be an answer, there most probably is one! And this is the thing that scares me the most. I may not even want to listen to it.

The argument might be that what is "mediocrity" is subjective. But that might be the most unfortunate thing. People tend to be mediocre with respect to their own definition of it.