The plane is still flying
What is the most resilient parasite? A bacterium? A virus? An intestinal worm?
An idea. Resilient, highly contagious. Once an idea has taken hold of the brain it’s almost impossible to eradicate. An idea that is fully formed, fully understood. That sticks, right in there somewhere.
Well, I hope I had some creative idea that can contaminate the world, I thought. The ones who changed the world - Steve Jobs, Hitler, or Einstein - these all had an idea that changed the paradigm of the world. Maybe you had some chance to just daydream “What if I had that mind-blowing idea?” For the ones who have thought of that even once, I would like to share my little story, which changed my view of ideas.
Before starting off, I would like to throw a question: what makes a plane fly? Well, we all know that there’s a fundamental law called Newton’s law. There’s a tug of war of forces, and when these forces make a balance, the plane files. I was smart enough to know that when I first rode a plane. I buckled my seatbelt with my stomping heart, trying to ignore my brother’s bullshit about trivia of plane riding. When I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and opened, my brother was gone. I thought he went to the bathroom so I waited without thinking about it. Soon the plane departed, and I forgot my brother’s absence since I was in an extreme nerve. When the plane was at its highest altitude, someone turned on the micro phone and shouted “I am now in the cockpit, and I just smacked the captain’s face. Oh! Now I realized…. the captain fainted!” It was my brother’s voice. The 150 passengers heading to Seoul instantly panicked. They screamed, unbuckled the belt, had the oxygen masks on… the entire plane was in a chaos. Well, just a minute after that my brother came out from the cockpit and admitted that he did nothing to the captain, except taking his micro phone. When he returned back to his seat, he silently asked me,
“Hey smarty, what makes a plane fly?”
I answered, “the tug of war between forces – Newton’s law”
“Well, did Newton become alive and change his own law during past several minutes?”
“No”
“Then why did people believe that the plane was no longer flying – that it was about to crash?”
“Because you smacked the face of the captain!”
“Well, what if I actually smacked the face of the captain? Isn’t there a co-pilot next to the captain? Were there any slightest shake of this plane when I announced?”
“No, the plane was stable, just as before you announced.”
Well, my brother had made his point. The fundamental oh-so-great Newton’s law did not change, but people’s belief changed just by a single announcement. Recounting this old story of mine, I remembered the days I was deceived just by other words, rumors, and unidentified “ideas”. These ideas were so radical that it was almost impossible to eradicate. In any forms of society – school, workplace, politics – countless people “are smacking the face of the captain”, and countless “passengers” are drowning in these flood of ideas. Toward these unidentified flood of ideas, you must throw reasonable doubts to deceptions. When you are lost, return back to Newton’s law. If you can find an actual flaw in the law, then break it. But the law is right, don’t be deceived by what you’ve perceived.
“What if the passengers had thrown questions when they heard the announcement?” my brother asked.
“What if an idea – presented as ‘mind-blowing’ by experts – isn’t real?” These ‘what ifs’ are the slightest difference between great thinkers and common men. Think, question, and destroy. Remember. The plane is still flying, and you are one of the 7 billion passengers to decide in this planet.
An idea. Resilient, highly contagious. Once an idea has taken hold of the brain it’s almost impossible to eradicate. An idea that is fully formed, fully understood. That sticks, right in there somewhere.
Well, I hope I had some creative idea that can contaminate the world, I thought. The ones who changed the world - Steve Jobs, Hitler, or Einstein - these all had an idea that changed the paradigm of the world. Maybe you had some chance to just daydream “What if I had that mind-blowing idea?” For the ones who have thought of that even once, I would like to share my little story, which changed my view of ideas.
Before starting off, I would like to throw a question: what makes a plane fly? Well, we all know that there’s a fundamental law called Newton’s law. There’s a tug of war of forces, and when these forces make a balance, the plane files. I was smart enough to know that when I first rode a plane. I buckled my seatbelt with my stomping heart, trying to ignore my brother’s bullshit about trivia of plane riding. When I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and opened, my brother was gone. I thought he went to the bathroom so I waited without thinking about it. Soon the plane departed, and I forgot my brother’s absence since I was in an extreme nerve. When the plane was at its highest altitude, someone turned on the micro phone and shouted “I am now in the cockpit, and I just smacked the captain’s face. Oh! Now I realized…. the captain fainted!” It was my brother’s voice. The 150 passengers heading to Seoul instantly panicked. They screamed, unbuckled the belt, had the oxygen masks on… the entire plane was in a chaos. Well, just a minute after that my brother came out from the cockpit and admitted that he did nothing to the captain, except taking his micro phone. When he returned back to his seat, he silently asked me,
“Hey smarty, what makes a plane fly?”
I answered, “the tug of war between forces – Newton’s law”
“Well, did Newton become alive and change his own law during past several minutes?”
“No”
“Then why did people believe that the plane was no longer flying – that it was about to crash?”
“Because you smacked the face of the captain!”
“Well, what if I actually smacked the face of the captain? Isn’t there a co-pilot next to the captain? Were there any slightest shake of this plane when I announced?”
“No, the plane was stable, just as before you announced.”
Well, my brother had made his point. The fundamental oh-so-great Newton’s law did not change, but people’s belief changed just by a single announcement. Recounting this old story of mine, I remembered the days I was deceived just by other words, rumors, and unidentified “ideas”. These ideas were so radical that it was almost impossible to eradicate. In any forms of society – school, workplace, politics – countless people “are smacking the face of the captain”, and countless “passengers” are drowning in these flood of ideas. Toward these unidentified flood of ideas, you must throw reasonable doubts to deceptions. When you are lost, return back to Newton’s law. If you can find an actual flaw in the law, then break it. But the law is right, don’t be deceived by what you’ve perceived.
“What if the passengers had thrown questions when they heard the announcement?” my brother asked.
“What if an idea – presented as ‘mind-blowing’ by experts – isn’t real?” These ‘what ifs’ are the slightest difference between great thinkers and common men. Think, question, and destroy. Remember. The plane is still flying, and you are one of the 7 billion passengers to decide in this planet.
1) The above quote is from the movie "Inception"
답글삭제2) The story in this essay is created by my imagination