By Hyon O’Brien
For the month of October, my book club in Miami Beach is reading Walter Isaacson’s recent biography of Steve Jobs.
This amazing American entrepreneur, the founder of Apple, died one year ago at the young age of 56. From 1997 to 2002, Apple ran the commercial “Think Different” to sell consumers on its innovative Macintosh computer as something unique from other computers.
They illustrated their concept by showing portraits of many figures from all walks of life throughout history who dared to think differently and who changed the world. “Think Different” is grammatically inaccurate; as “different” is being used as a verb modifier, it should have been “differently.”
But Steve Jobs insisted on the word “different”, just as in the case of the expression “think big”. The campaign was a huge success, winning the 1998 Emmy Award for Best Commercial and the 2000 Grand Effit Award for most effective campaign in America, perhaps demonstrating the accuracy of the commercial's tag line: “Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.”
The first person that came to my mind as a genius who was crazy enough to change the world was Galileo Galilei (1564-1642). Albert Einstein called him the father of modern science, and Stephen Hawking echoed that opinion, praising him as the single most important person in the birth of modern science.
This Italian mathematician, physicist, astronomer and philosopher played a major role in the scientific revolution. His achievements were numerous including the invention of the telescope but what we ordinary people know of him is his one singular observation. He demonstrated Copernicus’ theory that the Earth revolves around the sun. For this scientific assertion he was subjected to the Inquisition and spent years under house arrest. He was dismissed as a crazy heretic but he helped change the world's thinking.
Helen Keller was born deaf and blind in 1880 but she had a remarkable teacher who dared to think differently. After years of patient struggle with her student, Anne Sullivan managed to break through the isolation imposed by a near complete lack of language and succeeded in triggering Keller to blossom as she learned to communicate, ultimately helping her earn a college degree. By not giving up on her student, Sullivan gave the world a writer, a political activist and a lecturer. An inspiring person that can give hope to those who want to give up.
When I say “think differently” I do not mean only on a big scale – it's something we can practice every day. While I was growing up in Korea, unfortunately I was not encouraged to think differently from my teachers, parents, textbooks, or any other established authorities or ideas. I was taught to meekly, obediently accept what I was hearing and reading. There was something final about each item of information we were fed. It was understood that we shouldn’t challenge, doubt or ask questions.
When I was studying library science with my American classmates at graduate school in Boston, the first thing that hit me was that I was not good at independent thinking. I was so well programmed to accept others’ thinking that I found I had lost my God-given innate ability to think for myself. It took me years of intentional cultivation to deprogram myself from that passive approach.
In the 1992 book “Wild Swans” by Jung Chang, the author makes this same point. As a daughter of two Communist Party leaders who worked as tireless implementers of Mao's policies, and as a faithful follower herself of Chairman Mao’s teaching as a Red Guard member during the Cultural Revolution in China, it was unthinkable for her to allow her mind to question the rightness of Mao’s every thought or order.
He was held up to her as a god, an authority figure to whom all her devotion, loyalty and unquestioning adoration should be voluntarily and willingly given. Chang’s coming of age happened when she challenged what she had received as gospel and dared to think differently about Mao and his revolution. What suffering and havoc it had brought to her beloved people and land! In 2005 with her husband, Jon Halliday, she co-authored a book on Mao to show how wrong he was for China.
It takes courage to break out of the brain-washed thoughts and ideas that went into our mind while we were not yet mature enough to evaluate them. Look around yourself. Do you blindly follow others unquestioningly? Do you tend to accept everything about the world as it is presented to you?
I am glad Rosa Parks did not leave the seat in which she was sitting when the bus driver ordered her to move to back of the bus. Let us remember that God endowed us at birth with this amazing ability to think. Let’s try to think different. Not just for our own benefit but for the common good. The world will be a better place.
Hyon O'Brien is a former reference librarian now living in the United States. She can be reached at hyonobrien@gmail.com.