dani-debolt-blog

[dani-debolt-blog]

Think Wrong

Wow. The book Think Wrong written by John Bielenberg, Mike Burn, Greg Galle, and Elizabeth Dickinson opened up a window and let the light in.

The status quo was something I always knew was there however it was never something I openly and willingly acknowledged, the intense need to fit in never allowed it. I saw the kids I used to deem as weird sit alone and I felt bad for them but I did not want that to be me so I adapted to things I didn’t like because it was accepted and I fell into the pack mentality. In middle and high school, my anxiety spiked worse than ever, and at the time I didn’t know what it was or how to address those feelings. Come to learn, I had high functioning anxiety, so I was good at hiding the panic and mental restlessness. Great. Another way I became different when I fought so hard to fit in. Everyone else seemed like they were perfectly fine, which made me believe I was wrong to be so unlike the entire group. Art was a big part of how I coped and it eventually developed into something I knew I had to do despite if I became the weird art kid. That epiphany was one of the longest and most difficult periods in my life. Although that mentality didn’t go away in college and is apparent in the workplace according to the reading, as artists I believe we already have an edge. 

Think Wrong works to diminish the fear of going against “right thinking.” 

An interesting common theme in the book is the biological aspect. The human brain takes our experiences and learns from them creating neural pathways that “enable us to make quick, shortcut decisions and… take action without thinking or having to relearn simple tasks” such as tying your shoes or brushing your teeth. Our brains are designed a certain way and function a certain way, and it is our job to override our biology. We need routine and stability and those things add up to a status quo, a “whatever is right, is right” satisfaction. The brain is a fast learner. It builds and gets rid of pathways as it sees fit, an incredibly “efficient” machine that is our “downfall” in “thinking wrong.” 

As designers and in the art community we dive into a problem with the belief that we must come up with that out-there, crazy, “wrong” idea or solution, but our brains are still hard-wired to “conspire against us.” We are meant to disrupt “business as usual” and this book will push that budding mentality we already possess into a full-blown skill. 

Through the reading and the videos, my biggest takeaway is the fact that I must learn to think wrong and get rid of that fear of going against the status quo. I now have this ironic awareness that our world would simply not be where it is without those geniuses who thought wrong, yet our brains and the social construction that endlessly conspires “against difference” will always be in the way. The human brain will automatically default to “color inside the lines” and “move from A to B.” Thinking matters to everyone, no matter what your role in an organization.

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