March 28, 2010

If you don’t have a non-mainstream opinion, you can’t be successful

Harajuku

When a woman becomes a scholar there is usually something wrong with her sexual organs.
– Nietzsche

Has there ever been danger of war between Germany and ourselves, members of the same Teutonic race? Never has it even been imagined.
– Andrew Carnegie, 1913

There is not the slightest indication that [nuclear energy] will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will.
– Albert Einstein, 1932.

We have reached the limits of what is possible with computers.
– John Von Neumann, 1949

Even the most respected and intelligent people are going to argue against particular ideas that are later going to turn out to be true. You see, when people come with up new or different thoughts or opinions, they are commonly ridiculed. They are vehemently argued against and there is an attempt by others, even by otherwise intelligent people, to bring them in-line with what everyone else thinks.

When this happens to you, don’t give in. Think different, think and believe in stupid things that nobody else is thinking about, because it is only from these things that new creations are going to spring up. Protect your ability to be different from the others at all costs, because so many people will think it their duty to convince you that you have to think exactly the same way they do, and you have to believe the same things they do.

When you are the same as most people you meet, they will think you very nice. Everyone likes people who are the same as they are, because it’s comfortable. It’s going to be tempting for you to sink into this comfort and conform yourself to their expectations, talk about the topics they talk about, and become like them.

But everytime you avoid thinking about unusual things, you are averaging yourself out. You’re running a blur filter on your thoughts and with time, you will become bland. And not just that, you will set the upper limit of what you can achieve to be the same as your friends. If you talk average and think average, you will end up average, and if you still dream of somehow ending up extra-ordinary, you are fooling yourself.

The only way to be different from the masses of people you see walking by you everyday on the street is to think different – and it does not matter exactly what you think different about, but just somehow be different from them. And not be different from everyone else but then be the same as your friends – you have to be completely unique.

We need people to be wrong
Human society discovers things because of obstinate people. People who are told repeatedly that they are wrong, but they persist. People who believe they will find something and keep on going forward, even though it seems like nothing will ever be found. Don’t be fooled – 97% of the people who do this will waste their time and find nothing. But as a society, we need those 97% to also try, so that the 3% will find the things that will change the world.

The core characteristic of these people is that they don’t let the force of the averaging mass of humanity pull them in. They don’t let themselves be assimilated into mainstream thought, they come up with their own thought and their own idea, and they just stick it out and keep doing it.

It’s a constant fight against the pull of the ordinary, but don’t ever let the collective assimilate you. Fight for your right to be different, because it is only ever through this difference that you could ever change the world.

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