Click on the title link to see a short and inspiring video promoting the idea of thinking "differently." (you may need to go to the original at www.gapatton.net to do that).I am in favor of thinking differently; particularly when the word is used in a grammatically correct way, which it is in the video, but isn't in the title. The title is an ungrammatical adaptation by Apple, Inc., which I guess is supposed to show that thinking "differently" does mean breaking the rules; breaking the rules is exactly what the video promotes.
I am all for breaking the rules, and changing the world, which are virtues promoted in the video. But how the world is being changed, and what rules are being broken, is actually of significant importance.
Bob Dylan had a dream (a number of them: at least 115, I guess), and so did Adolph Hitler. Hitler's dream turned out to be a nightmare, but it certainly changed the world and broke the rules.
Content matters! Not all change is good. Not all rules are bad.
In our times, just "preserving" the world, as opposed to changing it, may be a worthy goal, particularly the natural world upon which we all depend. Following, not breaking, the rules established in the laws of nature is highly advisable. (Do I need to tell you about global warming?)
So, let's be a bit less self-congratulatory about how humans "change the world" by "breaking the rules."
There's a big difference between Mohandas Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr., and George W. Bush, who also "broke the rules" and "changed the world."
We, of course, cannot change the world. As Siddhārtha Gautama, Gandhiji and Dr. King taught us, we can only change ourselves.
ReplyDeleteThe Earth abides, in its own cycles, its own cosmic relationships, in its own limits. We either live and thrive within these constraints or risk extinction. Natural does not suffer "thinking differently" about the natural world.
Well I like my "two world hypothesis" as a way to explain how we can't change the Natural world, but we CAN change the human one. So often, we seem to think the opposite!
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