The Tipping Point.
Due to my travel schedule I had planned on resuming JustMyTake next Sunday. I changed my mind based on the sad incident involving the assassination of Charlie Kirk. An incident that overshadowed the 24th anniversary of 9/11/2001.
Quote of the Week: “It’s those who lie outside ordinary experience who have the most to teach us.” -Malcolm Gladwell
I assume Malcolm Gladwell was referring to going against the grain and not limiting ourselves to conventional thinking? There are many benefits (and unfortunately downsides) to thinking outside the box. Some, in no particular order:
- Innovation and Creativity – it encourages new ideas and unique solutions that others might not consider, leading to groundbreaking innovations.
- Problem-solving – Unc0nventional thinking helps address challenges from a different perspective.
- Stepping Beyond – sometimes, individuals or businesses who think in a different way tend to stand out above and beyond their peers or competition.
- Building Confidence – working out a unique solution by thinking differently can build confidence and trust in your own ideas.
Gladwell has authored many books, one of them many of us read twenty-five years ago, called The Tipping Point. In this book, Gladwell explored how behaviors and ideas spread and become viral and lead to a ‘tipping point’. The book not only alludes to thinking outside the box, but covers how a small idea, with people transmitting their notions and using social media for socialization, can move that idea into an ‘epidemic’ – when that small idea explodes into a big moment changing many things all at once, also known as the tipping point. Sometimes, and unfortunately, that small idea does not always yield a positive outcome.
I have written about the tipping point because I have reached mine. Charlie Kirk’s assassination has pushed me over the edge, not only because of a twenty-two-year-old taking Kirk’s life, but because people are using social media to celebrate the assassination. I will continue to use LinkedIn for business purposes, and I will stay on Instagram for now as I enjoy photos from family and friends, but as of today I have left other social media channels, including X (Twitter). I will no longer indulge the wicked comments expressed by many on the sad and shocking diatribes from those who use X.
I will no longer read about groups of people celebrating the assassination of Charlie Kirk because his views and opinions differed from theirs. I will no longer read about people starting a Go Fund page for someone who murdered a woman on a bus in Charlotte, North Carolina. Though I will miss the just-in-time news and sports posts I read on X, I am done.
Social media has become a springboard for hoaxes, fake shootings, and more importantly an offramp for a lack of moral clarity. I am done with anyone who celebrates the assassination of Charlie Kirk. I am done with anyone who enlists the help of others to support the murderer who took the life of Charlotte bus rider. I am done with all of it.
I did not agree with Charlie Kirk on many of his viewpoints. I did not agree with viewpoints from George Wallace, Martin Luther King, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, and Joseph Biden. Here is what I would agree with: if you supported or celebrated the murder of Charlie Kirk, please send me a reply to my weekly email that you receive and ask to be taken off the distribution list. I have no interest in you reading my takes.
I do not agree with everything Stephen A. Smith has to say. What I do agree with is his take on the degradation of American society and people’s solace in celebrating Charlie Kirk’s assassination.