Pass the Kool-Aid
I swear allegiance to very little in this world.
I've spent enough time in the company of people who seem caught up in something they believe in to want to avoid falling into that trap myself. Some people really, really love Apple products, for example. I don't dislike Apple products, but I'm not, as they say, going to drink the Kool-Aid. It really didn't matter if tomorrow I got a job working at Apple. I'm sure they're a great company to work for, I'm sure they've got great design, I'm sure that they do a great job of staying ahead of the curve. In my book, it doesn't matter.
It's a matter of keeping perspective. As soon as you've downed the Kool-Aid, you don't get to be objective anymore. Your take on things becomes fractured, and your own perception of things can become warped around the way you want things to be, instead of the way they actually are.
But here's the thing: I'm pretty sure I'm wrong about this. First, I've drunken someone's Kool-Aid...I'm just not aware of whose it is, and I'm not aware that I've consumed it because, well, I've consumed it. So it goes.
More importantly, there ain't no great work without passion, and passion is born of the kind of zeal that comes with believing in something almost blindly. Keeping perspective is important, but trying to maintain complete, total, and boring objectivity is probably just a different way of warping your perspective.
You are the hero in your own story. You just have to choose how to steer the plot before you die. It's either that, or let someone else do it for you.
I've spent enough time in the company of people who seem caught up in something they believe in to want to avoid falling into that trap myself. Some people really, really love Apple products, for example. I don't dislike Apple products, but I'm not, as they say, going to drink the Kool-Aid. It really didn't matter if tomorrow I got a job working at Apple. I'm sure they're a great company to work for, I'm sure they've got great design, I'm sure that they do a great job of staying ahead of the curve. In my book, it doesn't matter.
It's a matter of keeping perspective. As soon as you've downed the Kool-Aid, you don't get to be objective anymore. Your take on things becomes fractured, and your own perception of things can become warped around the way you want things to be, instead of the way they actually are.
But here's the thing: I'm pretty sure I'm wrong about this. First, I've drunken someone's Kool-Aid...I'm just not aware of whose it is, and I'm not aware that I've consumed it because, well, I've consumed it. So it goes.
More importantly, there ain't no great work without passion, and passion is born of the kind of zeal that comes with believing in something almost blindly. Keeping perspective is important, but trying to maintain complete, total, and boring objectivity is probably just a different way of warping your perspective.
You are the hero in your own story. You just have to choose how to steer the plot before you die. It's either that, or let someone else do it for you.