Guest Lecture (Mark Murdack): Think Differently

We had Mark Murdack (@ohexcuseme), who is currently the social media manager of Cafepress, come speak in Dr. Freberg’s class this morning. Undoubtedly energetic, but far from normal, Mark was easily one of my favorite in-class guest speakers this semester. One of the most interesting topics he touched on in his lecture dealt with, “why weirdos outperform normals.”

A very ambiguous but interesting perspective that I concluded that I agree with wholeheartedly. As I begin to connect the dots of his key ideas, we are all brought into this world the same way but inevitably are born different as individuals with unique characteristics and defining traits. In essence, we come naked and unchanged by a world we have yet to experience. As we grow older, our parents, friends, and jobs put us in this creativity-deprived box if you will. We then begin to unconsciously label our unique characteristics that innately make us who we are as “weird”, or something that doesn’t line up with the established norms of society. Common phrases like:

“Don’t do (blank) because that’s weird.”

“If you don’t do (blank), you’re weird.”

Ultimately, we are conditioned by others and sometimes ourselves to these established norms of society while simultaneously deceiving ourselves into this prison of conformity, which is disguised as what society has deemed as “normal”. The ironic thing is that when we get to that job interview, the employee will ask you something along the lines of, “What makes you different from every other candidate that indicates why we should hire you?” Do you see the glaring flaw in this system? We expect young adults to be unique, creative individuals that separate themselves from others when all their lives they’re taught to be “normal”.

One of my favorite minds that I have ever studied was Steve Jobs, and how much he praised those who strive to look at and think of things differently. One of his most famous quotes says:

“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… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but 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 ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

There is no quote that resonates with me personally, at the very core of my passion for life in general, like this one. There are very few occasions in today’s educational system that I’ve experienced in a classroom setting, a lecture that can be translated at a personal level as something that is not only practical but inspiring, nevertheless.

Our purpose is not to just be different, but to be ourselves. We all are genetically different by our unique personalities that shape the foundation of who we which innately make each one of us incomparable. It’s about time we start acting like it, until being weird is praised as being normal.