I’m this incredibly connected world, anyone that endeavors to stay “current” drinks from a firehose of information. And, from that fountain, it’s arguable how much of any individual drop makes a difference in our lives. But, for so many reasons we continue to try. Some for entertainment. Some to commune. Some panhandling for little bits of gold that might change this lot in life.
For most of my life I would frame this as a novel problem. But, over time, I’ve come to realize that everyone suffers from the flywheel effect created by humanity. You have billions of people spending their lives to make things go faster, cost less, scream louder, and push on our dopamine centers just a little harder. And in this great Darwinian morass a few people make outsized discoveries. And when they do, the volume ratchets up and the world seems to spin faster. We create our own collective cultural suffering.
In this lies the challenge. If you spend all your time trying to understand the edge of culture, you aren’t spending much time thinking differently. And “thinking differently” is not a programmed task. It’s consigning to wander around alone, learn different/offbeat things, and generally be misunderstood a lot.
This is why contrarians and sociopaths do so well as founders. The physiologically aren’t wired to care what others think. And, trying to think like a contrarian is a skill I want to develop. I don’t want to lead as a contrarian, but looking at markets and opportunities and I need to build the skill to more fluidly look at all sides of an idea. (Finding consensus is a natural skill for me, and on this case my Achilles heel…I’ll never do anything special if I can’t think differently.)
Living, doing, and thinking different is something to be cultivated. We’ve been made to think it’s easy through purchasing the right product and dressing certain way. But that’s just another form of co-opted conformity.