The special snowflake principle is the same principle of hope and dream that causes people to start restaurants and other small businesses, or to play the lottery. On the average it’s a gift from hopeful people to shrewd people, and it is one of the driving forces of American life.
On the other side, this hopeful principle is counterbalanced by the complacent normalization principle, which says that it’s reasonable to plan on the basis of the average outcome and to ignore the outliers and long tails. The normalization principle is the ruling principle of our triumphant Democratic Party.
When entrepreneurs and high-stakes gamblers guess right on an exception, they can change the game permanently.
“Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.”
“I dream things that never were; and I say, ‘Why not?’”
“Know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold them”
Etc.
May 31, 2012 at 12:15 am
As you note, some people really are special snowflakes.
Me, I have sometimes had the itch to blog. I am middlin’ clever, occasionally provocative, somewhat knowledgeable and exhibit a modest amount of insight. I also recognize that I lack those qualities in sufficient quantity to stand out. I am no special snowflake.
You, on the other hand, possess the blogger’s tools in abundance, including prolixity and genuine originality. The Internet is a medium designed to showcase your gifts.
There are, of course, a lot of good reasons to not expend the effort necessary to maintain a popular blog, and one might reasonably denigrate the practice of blogging in general, but like those high school guidance counselors who resented my failure to live up to their idea of my potential, I find it vexing that you’ve never applied yourself to the task of regular, popular blogging.
May 31, 2012 at 2:05 am
I don’t have the consistency to carry a blog on my own, and also, we’re doomed.