Excellence" is not a gift, but a skill that takes practice.
We do not act "rightly" because we are "excellent",
in fact we achieve "excellence" by acting "rightly".
Glen Hirshberg's stories are haunting, absolutely, but not only because of the content -- the stories themselves haunt, they stick around, they linger, inhabiting a little corner of the reader's brain and resurfacing to evoke mystery or sadness or longing. It's a pleasure to dive into Hirshberg's storytelling skills in American Morons.
All in the golden afternoon Full leisurely we glide; For both our oars, with little skill, By little arms are plied, While little hands make vain pretence Our wanderings to guide.
But the transformation of consciousness undertaken in Taoism and Zen is more like the correction of faulty perception or the curing of a disease. It is not an acquisitive process of learning more and more facts or greater and greater skills, but rather an unlearning of wrong habits and opinions. As Lao-tzu said, "The scholar gains every day, but the Taoist loses every day.
It requires a great deal of boldness and a great deal of caution to make a great fortune, and when you have it, it requires ten times as much skill to keep it.