Remember "Think Different"?

I don't see a whole lot of #resist anymore either

I loved this.

From Apple’s “Think Different” campaign:

“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules and they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or villify them… about the only thing you can’t do is ignore them, because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do. Think different.”

I remember seeing this. Loving this. And, for a moment, I felt understood. Appreciated even.

Seeing what has happened since, I can’t help but think of this campaign as another part of the psyop… grabbing us by our hearts and spirits and priming us to open our minds to receive whatever narratives were about to be poured into it. After all, this was an advertising campaign.

And advertising campaigns plant cultural seeds.

But are we really allowed to think different? I mean really different... not the “different” that gets co-opted by big corporations and mainstream media and then becomes defined, elevated and celebrated in campaigns that are specifically designed to influence our choices and behavior??

I don’t think so. In fact, I think our values and our best intentions have been hijacked and then manipulated into cultural weapons that have been used against us in the name of compliance and control.

I’ve written about the weaponization about our beliefs and values with regards to vaccine compliance, here… and the impacts of some of these practices here.

Globalist and World Economic Forum advisor, Yuval Noah Harari, tells us “we are now hackable animals" and explains…

“Freedom has absolutely no meaning from a physical or biological perspective,” he said. “It’s just another myth, another empty term humans have invented. Humans have invented God, and humans have invented Heaven and Hell, and humans have invented free will, but there is no more truth to free will than there is to Heaven and Hell.”

The Great Reset seems to count on this. And perhaps the saddest seed of truth is that humanity IS being hacked… and it is our human nature that is being used against us as our need to belong is weaponized.

We walk into the trap that has been set - one that perpetuates virtue-signaling and self-righteousness - because we can’t bear the exclusion and isolation that now comes with being different (outside of the selectively celebrated ways). Our reputations have become more important than who we actually are because of their impact on our social standing. Our fears over loss of connection have tricked us into trading intimacy, understanding and genuine connection for popularity and “fitting in.”

Deprived of genuine human connection, many people have become more judgmental and less generous towards anyone who might “think different.”

If we are to preserve humanity, I suspect each of us has some work to do with regards to making room for “different.” And uncomfortable.

I keep thinking it’s the children who have the best shot at saving us. And my thoughts keep turning back to my own kids and all of the amazing lessons I have learned from them…

What Kids Can Teach Us About Resistance

When he was in kindergarten, my son refused to say the pledge of allegiance. He didn’t want to put his hand on his heart. He didn’t want to say the words aloud.

When I asked him why, he simply responded, “I don’t want to.”

And then he asked me what a pledge was. “It’s like a promise,” I explained. 

Well, he didn’t want to make a promise then. He didn’t understand what all those words meant. 

I was really impressed. And proud. And a teeny bit uncomfortable that my kid might be judged or misunderstood.

Of course it had nothing to do with patriotism or lack thereof. It had nothing to do with how he felt about his country. He barely knew it. He was five years old. 

(And anyway, what if it did?)

He just wanted a chance to decide for himself and he wanted some time to think about it. He wanted informed consent.

But consider what happens today when a football player or an Olympic athlete rethinks allegiance or bucks any narrative (think about how we feel about people wearing or not wearing masks). There’s a need to justify or vilify. The behavior becomes “right” or “wrong”… and inevitably, a symbol of something else. Our behavior becomes conflated with politics, ideologies or “conspiracy theories” and is judged accordingly. So much for “think different.”

Our kids have minds of their own. They are such fabulous critical thinkers. They love to ask “Why?” and pull things apart. Children are natural scientists, asking questions,  push up against boundaries to see what will happen, observing everything (whether we like it or not). Driven by curiosity and wonder, they notice everything and are far more interested and naming and identifying things than judging them. It matters deeply to them when things aren’t true or fair. And they don’t spend too much time worrying about whether they’re right or wrong before expressing what’s in their hearts. Because whatever it is, there’s something true there.

Their stubbornness and impetuousness - the messiness and the inconvenience of it - is so perfectly human. I’m thinking we need it. Or at least we need to make room for it and find the value in it.

Humanity has made a habit of sacrificing things “for the good of society,” but I find myself wondering lately if our current society is “for the good of humanity.”

Can we Rethink Different?