Zig When They Zag

Originally on published September 1st, 2024

There's something so enticing about "The Big Short." A few humble people find a glaring secret at the heart of the global economy. Against all odds, in the face of doubt and ridicule, they hold firm to their beliefs. In the end, they are vindicated as prescient geniuses who lucidly saw the world as it was, trusted their gut, and stood by their truth. Where else can this lesson be applied? When you step back and view the world, what do you see? Any glaring secrets? Something you believe most people are wildly wrong about? If you were to notice such a pattern, how would you respond? Would your first impulse be to look left and right, to seek affirmation from others? Or would you trust your instinct, and live your life accordingly? Would you risk ridicule and rejection to follow truth as you see it? Would you maintain direct contact with reality, *your* reality, or would you limply cave to the sensible, the normal, the respectable?

I'll leave you with the words of Emily Dickinson, who I've come to believe was the most beautiful woman to ever live:

Much Madness is divinest Sense
To a discerning Eye
Much Sense - the starkest Madness
’Tis the Majority

In this, as all, prevail
Assent - and you are sane
Demur - you’re straightway dangerous -
And handled with a Chain