In her Forbes blog Pink Slipped, Susannah Breslin recently posted an entry which resonated with me ~ Why Crazy People Make Better Bloggers. In this context, "crazy" need not mean psychotic. Rather, as described in the Steve Jobs quote which heads her entry, "Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the trouble makers, the round pegs in the square holes .... the ones who see things differently .... "
It seems I've always seen things differently, and I've certainly found myself in hot water for my views often enough that hot water feels like my natural habitat. It's not that I see any particular virtue in stirring things up for the sake of turmoil. Rather, there is just so very much that is screwed up in our world, and too many people are unwilling or unable to see it. So it becomes the responsibility of those of us with a different perspective born of lateral thinking, or born of the informed dissent upon which our democratic republic was founded, to speak out.
Breslin holds that there are at least three reasons why crazy people make better bloggers than non-crazy people ~
1. We'll say what you won't.
2. We speak the truth.
3. We're more entertaining.
To see what she means by these statements, click on the link to her blog post. Crazy? You bet, but in a very cool way.
In passing, I want to give a shout-out to a new book recommended by Sheril Kirshenbaum, one of my favorite science writers. The title is Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America. Sheril's review includes a quote from the book ~ "'Whenever the people are well informed,' Thomas Jefferson wrote, 'they can be trusted with their own government.' But what happens in a world dominated by complex science? Are the people still well-enough informed to be trusted with their own government? And with less than 2 percent of Congress with any professional background in science, how can our government be trusted to lead us in the right direction?"
The thought of so few leaders, so few citizens, and even fewer schoolchildren understanding mathematics and the sciences (particularly when compared to other nations) makes me shudder. It was not always so. In high school, I took every science and math class offered, as did my friends. In college, I attended both undergrad and graduate-level science classes while in pursuit of my bachelor's degree. Hmm. Perhaps I should run for Congress? No, I doubt that I'd win any election ~ too crazy (but in a very cool way).
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