Why are we so fixated on ranking people, and strictly on a linear scale? As soon as you're measuring performance on more than one dimension, it becomes very ha

Why are we so fixated on ranking people, and strictly on a linear scale? As soon as you're measuring performance on more than one dimension, it becomes very hard to rank people. Multivariate competitions, for that matter, are more interesting to me. I get bored by Olympic disciplines with a one-dimensional metric (fastest time or longest distance, for the most part), but am far more interested in team sports where players show a lot of variation among multiple measurement categories. Participants in team sports can also show a lot more finesse, creativity, or even craziness than many an Olympian who is just trying to maximize a single physical quantity in a simple sport. Competition is often interesting and appealing, but I'd prefer if we didn't let it distract us in every single activity. In the athletic realm, it's refreshing for to read about many of parkour's expositors, who seem to deemphasize competition and focus on personal satisfaction. I don't know how prevalent this attitude is among its practitioners, but I know that if I ever took it up, I'd do for my personal enjoyment... and maybe to entertain some of my friends and family members. For parkour in particular, I'd probably enjoy it less if it was structured as a competition, rather than as free form activity where one gets to see where each participant decides to travel and how they decide to go about it, free from any expectation (other than moving and avoiding major injury). Moving away from athletic pursuits, why does it even matter who the top musician is in a given musical genre? What does that even mean? I don't care about who the "best" jazz instrumentalist is, but am instead glad that there a lot of great jazz musicians out there, whose music I can enjoy, whether they happen to be the best regarded or the most obscure. I only hope that everyone from the most popular artists "down" to local bands and street musicians can make a living doing what they love, which also happens to be something I enjoy to witness, regardless of whatever rank they may have on a given scale. Other than respect for others, we should not expect anything out of people that pursue a hobby or recreational interest for their own personal pleasure. For those creating or doing something for others to enjoy, maybe we just settle for a certain, subjectively satisfactory level of proficiency with a given discipline's skills, instead of insisting that everyone seeks to becomes the "best" at whichever activity they happen to be pursuing.