Tag: Tulip mania

Free mind Free man

If we just sit on the track, pretty soon we will be run over by the oncoming train.

If we just sit and not think at all, we outsource the thinking to others.

Inadvertently, we fall back to the default position, that of inertia.

Or give in to herd mentality, bubble mania, tulip mania and CDO mania.

Cavemen or Centennial men , all have done that. The mass lives in quiet desperation.

But, luckily, there are a few, who are labeled as “outsiders”, rabble-rousers, disruptors or free thinkers.

They “Think Different“.

Even act (or not act) differently.

Just zoom out and take a long view. You will spot them: from medical to material sciences, from the  arts to technology.

These people don’t take “No” for an answer.

They are definitely not into conformity, or safety in numbers.

They don’t follow the “wisdom of crowd” (and definitely wouldn’t stop and look up to the high-rises during one of the experiments on Social Proof).

They chart and map out their own orbits.

To them, between A and B, a straight line is never the shortest. They know the universe and everything that exists is in constant motion, changing and coordinating to achieve entropy.

They might make and listen to music. But never allow themselves to be “boxed” in by the 7 notes, or  restricted bandwidth. (In fact, many apps could have been around back then, but slow data transfer rate and early-stage multiplexing weren’t up to speed ).

Free mind seeks out-of-worldliness. Outliers embrace forward-thinking. Bill Gates himself took the late bus to code on off-hours mainframe. Steve Jobs got transferred to the grave-yard shift etc…

By merely going across the cultures, one can see the relativity of cultural codes.

Or by traveling along the time dimension (just look back to the Wright brothers and their first aerodynamics experiment, or the architectural displays at the Chicago World Fair which marveled attendants with dazzling electricity) helps jump-start our trend-tracking.

Worst case, one can pretend to live a college-student life, when every concept is new and each lecture is challenged.

Albert Einstein puts it well, ” the saddest thing in life is  wasted talent”.

Plan “surprises” into your schedule. Take a side path, the road less traveled, as Robert Frost puts it.

Embrace diversity of opinion, be challenged and changed by them. Taste a variety of foods. Nature is sending out signals for us to decode. Take that plunge into the unknown. Be brave and be alive. For once, think instead of sitting on the track to see if the train will run on schedule. And follow not the crowd,  however large its size. One neuron at a time, start thinking free. And in the process free yourself.

Outside the bubble

When you are inside, you are hard-presed and unable to think.

But when you are out of the bubble, it’s illuminating.

You are able to look back, to gain perspectives.

Bubble by definition is that which encompasses those who subscribe to its rules (deposit here, withdraw there).

We got the Tulip mania in Holland, Ponzi scheme in Florida, dot.con and most recently, housing.

In fact, more are in the making (student loan, green tech etc…).

High stakes and high rewards.

But then, who would want to jump in to that which has already been proven 100%.

There is always “acceptable loss” “sot and hard trend”.

But what is acceptable to one is not acceptable to the other.

So we could never really be outside of a bubble.

We are inter-linked with others: friends, families, and co-workers.

They will be the ones who whisper “it’s just between you and me”.

Few  were able to foresee this past housing crisis.

Now we all are on this side of it, with some residues and long tail effects.

What lessons learned? Take-aways?

Are we wiser while poorer?

A friend’s Dad has just passed away.

At my last visit, his words were “let me sleep a little bit”.

The drug had taken its effect.

When we are in a bubble, perhaps we “sleep a little bit”.

Why think?

Social proof ( the majority are always right).

So we let down our guards, exercise not our survival instincts.

We forgot to fight, the way gladiators used to each day.

Our sense of “flight or fight” has been put to sleep.

After all, it’s the bank, the rating agencies, the press.

All well-regarded institutions, with huge marble lobbies and high ceilings.

I heard of more lay-offs (Motorola under Google, Newsweek gone under for the second time etc..).

Not a  good sign!

To shake all off, takes some time.

Just like healing and grief process, maybe all we need is time.

The bubble crushed dreams. Just like Fukushima and earthquake.

We just don’t see it in that “disastrous” light, but its tolls are the same, if not deeper.

When we recover from a bubble, we lost that which made us successful in the first place: self-confidence.

To restore that takes baby steps.

One small win at a time.

But those baby steps are outside the bubble, not huge strides we made inside.

What an irony. Should have been the other way around. In hindsight!

But with each baby step, the strength will come back, for the long journey ahead.

Watch out for another bubble on the horizon. No risks no rewards.