So, I was catching up on DVRd television for the week and because Maroon 5 and Adam Levine are guilty pleasures of mine, I was watching this week's episode of "The Voice."
For those of you who haven't been sucked in, the premise is four stars choose singers for their individual teams. Those singers compete within their own team and eventually the teams compete against each other, and there is one ultimate winner at the end.
This week, Cee Lo Green was giving his team a pep talk and he paraphrased a quote by George Patton: "If we're all thinking the same way, someone's not thinking."
I had never heard the quote, and the simplicity of it took me aback.
Without conflicting thoughts and ideas, how would anything ever change? Conversely, if all you have are conflicting thoughts and ideas, you still can't change anything.
So what's the solution? I'm going to vote for thinking every time, even though it could cause a problem.
For a very long time, the fact that the Earth and other planets revolve around the sun was up for debate--that didn't make the reality any less true or pliable. Sometimes, you have to stick your neck out for what's right--literally, even if it conflicts with what everyone else is saying. Thinking differently doesn't make you wrong.
There is no scientific innovation, advancement of civilization, or even improvement to a recipe that can occur without a difference in opinion or a shift in thinking. Can you imagine where we would be if everyone thought alike? A frightening possibility. We'd still be using blood-letting to correct any number of medical ills and exorcising the demonic vapors to cure small pox. We'd all still be eating Kraft Macaroni and Cheese Dinner out of the blue box, instead of the home-style version in the blue bag that is heavenly.
Why does this matter to me? Why should it matter to anyone?
One of the other "coaches" on "The Voice" did something this week that, to me, was completely unexpected. Blake Shelton, a country music star, chose to eliminate a solid rocker that brought the house down and a clear country hottie women swooned over in favor of keeping a sixteen-year-old girl with a truly unique "voice." When he was asked why he made the choice, the answer he gave absolutely floored me. To paraphrase, he said he had understood that America had saved the other singer, also a young woman, because of her unique sound and that he chose the sixteen-year-old because it occurred to him that with these two women, he had a greater opportunity to "affect change" in music. What an idea!
I don't want to make this post about music, because that's not the point I'm driving at. Ghandi is famous for saying that we should be the change we want to see in the world. Change and difference are the enemies of homogenization and the friends of development, innovation and advancement.
When I listen to the radio, when I see how many large companies struggle, and I flip through the channels on television, I think we are trapped in a pattern of gross homogenization.
It's hard to tell who truly has talent anymore, because so much contemporary music is layered with effects and autotone--what's the real voice in all of that? Our auto industry nearly collapsed in America because the focus was on what was making money and not what was around the corner. With gasoline prices over three dollars a gallon, the Escalade in the driveway didn't seem like such a great idea compared to the Prius. I wonder if there were any people timidly raising their hands in meetings offering up ideas that supported the big picture of these companies, but not the egos and bank accounts of their leaders. We will probably never know, but clearly being shaken to its core made our auto industry take more than stock. There are so many reality shows about housewives, pregnant teens, angry party scenes and voyeuristic train wrecks, it's hard to tell the difference between all of them. With one show called "Teen Mom," and another one called "Sixteen and Pregnant," wouldn't you think we're all full up with shows about this topic?
Just because something is on a different channel, doesn't make it different. It's all the same useless noise. And I know it might seem like a stretch, but maybe if we all really looked at the global economy and saw what things are actually working, we would be surprised to see that the things that are working are the things that people are thinking differently about. If we approach our world, the economy, and each other the same way we always have and the results we are getting suck, maybe it's time to try something or think something different. Maybe it's time for those of us who don't want to think to listen to people who do.
Albert Einstein is credited with saying that "insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." The quote is a cliche now, but it's no less true.
If we aren't willing to take the risk of thinking differently than everyone else when everyone else is wrong, we might as well learn to accept our own fate--because we have left our fate to others. And if you're too scared to think, and they're to scared to think, you can bet, nobody else is thinking about you.
http://youtu.be/U3jzvVPWy2I
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