Wayne
Dyer said there are two ways to have the tallest building in town. One is to
tear down everyone else’s building. I always liked that and repeat it often.
Lately, it occurred to me that there is a third way to have the tallest
building in town:
Just
convince/bribe some authority figures to declare that your building, in spite
of all obvious evidence, is indeed the tallest. (Bonus points if you can con
them into making it a law.)
We
see it every day: Get a pack of politicians, reinforced by select networks, to
repeat something over and over and over—if they can say it in a way that’s
halfway clever or rhymes, so much the better. As any successful cult leader can
testify, it doesn’t matter if it’s blatantly false; what matters is that they
keep saying it.
Here’s
a simple example of how it works: According to neurologist Richard E. Cytowic,
two-thirds of the US population believes that we humans use only 10% of our
brains. Nearly half of all science teachers believe it. It’s not true. It’s
absurd. That doesn’t keep most folks from spouting it as fact. Why? Because
they’ve done extensive research or applied a spark of common sense? No, because
they’ve heard it repeated over and over by credible others. Spooky, ‘eh?
(“If you’re still defining ‘tallest’
merely in terms of height, you need to wise up. Savvy citizens measure tallness
by desire, by clishmaclaver, and by divine right! It’s hard work, yes, but
where did laziness ever get anyone? Consider David and Goliath. Who stood
tallest when the dust cleared? When life gives you molehills, make mountains!”)
