Last night I took three of my older children to a magnificent recital by Leon Fleisher.  The story of Fleisher is very inspiring – he was a child prodigy and at age 16 was singled out as by a famous conductor as being ‘the pianist find of the century’.  But in 1965 he was struck with a neurological affliction known as focal dystonia and lost the use of two fingers on his right hand; he was told he would never regain use of this hand.

He mastered a number of difficult piano pieces using only his left hand (one of which he performed last night), and after four decades, regained the use of his right hand.  He is now 82 years old.  Can you imagine what it must be like after so many years to regain the use of your hand – particularly for someone whose life passion was the piano? A film was made about him called Two Hands, which was nominated for an Oscar and an Emmy.  I’m going to see if we can find it at the library, since I’m sure the kids would enjoy seeing it after hearing him play.  We also stayed for the question and answer session with him afterward, which added more perspective to our view of him – it’s nice to see people who have accomplished great things and remember that they are simply people.

On our way out of the packed parking lot, there were many cars waiting in line to exit.  We noticed that despite the efforts of the man who was directing the traffic out of the lot, all of the dozens of the drivers were turning right, though the attendant was vigorously indicating they needed to turn left.  When it was finally my turn, I broke with ‘tradition’ and turned left.  After a couple of minutes as I tried to figure out where I was going, I saw this allowed me to quickly get to the main street, rapidly bypassing all of those who had turned right and were backed up, still waiting to get onto the main street from the second exit.  Right after we got onto the main street, one of the kids glanced behind us and were shocked to find that there was a long stream of cars who followed me.  I explained to them the proven psychological phenomena they were witnessing.

People take their social cues from those around them, regardless of the evidence to the contrary.  The social reasoning is, if everyone else is doing it, it must be right.  The attendant couldn’t have been more clear about what direction they should go in, and intellectually it’s reasonable to assume he’s been hired to make your life easier by keeping traffic going smoothly.  But when people see all of those in front of them doing one thing, it’s very difficult not to follow – you start to think there must be something that everyone is aware of and are appropriately responding to, though you don’t see it.

But I was willing to take a chance going in a different direction, since I couldn’t see how it could negatively affect me – after all, this person’s job is to make my experience there pleasant!  And once I was willing to go in a different direction, the cars behind me were willing to follow my cues.  Had anything else changed? No – it was the same parking lot, same attendant, doing the same thing. The only thing that was different was the reaction of the driver in front of them.  All it took was one person willing to turn in a different direction, and suddenly the drivers behind me were willing to pay attention to the energetic efforts of the parking lot attendant and go in the direction he indicated.

As I pointed out to my kids last night, “you can see what happens to those who follow the crowd without thinking”.  Following the crowd generally isn’t what you want to do in life.  Happiness isn’t there, peace of mind isn’t there, meaning and joy aren’t there.  Conformity and social approval are there, though – and in a society that values conformity more than critical thinking skills, that’s of primary value to many people.

Many things I believed to be facts have been turned upside down after significant research (birthing practices; parenting; nutrition – many, many aspects; health – eg role of vaccinations; education).  Despite being a conservative person by nature who doesn’t like to stand out or make waves, I’ll make what is a very strong statement, but over the years I’ve become increasingly convinced it’s true.  If you’re following the crowd, it’s a good clue that you may be going in the wrong direction, and need to closely examine what you’re doing to be sure it’s in alignment with your true values. The crowd is heavily peer dependent and doesn’t make choices based on individual needs or intelligent though, and group think is a reality in almost every area of life.

Life lessons can be found everywhere, can’t they? 😆

Avivah