an essay on people looking at you strangely
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It’s hard to argue of a more valuable creative skill than an eye for the innovative and unique.
Just look at some of the biggest industry disruptors from the past few decades: Uber, AirBnB, Amazon. On the surface, the ideas these companies had were ‘crazy’.
Who would have thought the world’s largest accommodations company would own no properties? Or that the most popular transportation option would own no vehicles and employ no drivers?
Hindsight may be 20/20, but I guarantee if I had pitched these ideas years ago you would’ve sized me up for a straight jacket.
Whether you’re building a business, writing an essay, or designing a product, the status quo is an innovation killer. That’s why it’s so important to keep things ‘weird’ when you’re working.
Non-conformity, novelty — however you define ‘weird’, it’s something that goes against what’s commonly accepted, and works. ‘Weird’ is seeing things differently. It’s connecting the dots where we normally wouldn’t.
As illustrator Jessica Hagy explains in her post Why weird is wonderful (and bankable):
“Different isn’t always better, but better is always different.”
Why weird works
Psychologists have known for some time that when we experience a novel situation we more easily store this event in our memory.
The science behind why this happens is a bit longwinded but boils down to this:
‘Weird’ experiences cause a release of dopamine (a neurotransmitter related to motivation) in the part of our brain responsible for discovering, processing, and storing new sensory impressions. That hit of dopamine not only makes us more motivated to explore, but new studies have shown it also creates a stronger connection to long-term memory.
Our brains physically remember the weird and atypical.
“The imagination imitates. It is the critical spirit that creates.”
On a psychological level we give strange ideas more value than those that support what we already know.
As author Murray S Davis explains in his famous essay That’s Interesting!:
“If it does not challenge but merely confirms one of their taken-for-granted beliefs, [the audience] will response to it by rejecting its value while affirming its truth.”
Weird ideas and elements not only stick with us, but we give them more cultural value than those that just confirm what we already know and accept.
… to a point
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