Here's to the ones...

The following is from an old apple/mac commercial. I don't think I ever heard it (at least not in a marking way) when it was originally produced. But something about the season that I am in right now in my life. The season that those around me are in. It just clicked. I'm sitting here and as I post it I'm on the verge of tears and I can't even tell you why.

Maybe it's inspiration, but it feels like something deeper. Like somehow I'm on the verge of something that is bigger than anything I've ever been connected to in my short existence. Like something so overwhelming is on the edge of breaking through in me and those around me that I will be swallowed up by it. I'll shut up now and let you read it. I want to know what it does to you... if that means nothing then at least tell me nothing.

Here's to the crazy ones.

The misfits.

The rebels.

The troublemakers.

The round pegs in the square holes.

The ones who see things differently.

They're not fond of rules

And they have no respect for the status quo.

You can praise them, quote them, disagree with them

disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.

About the only thing that you can't do is ignore them.

Because they change things.

They invent. They imagine. They heal.

They explore. They create. They inspire.

They push the human race forward.

Maybe they have to be crazy.

How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art?

Or sit in silence and hear a song that's never been written?

Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?

We make tools for these kinds of people.

While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.

Because the people who are crazy enough to think that they can

change the world, are the ones who do.

(The one-minute commercial featured black and white video footage of significant historical people of the past, including (in order) Albert Einstein, Bob Dylan, Martin Luther King, Jr., Richard Branson, John Lennon, R. Buckminster Fuller, Thomas Edison, Muhammad Ali, Ted Turner, Maria Callas, Mahatma Gandhi, Amelia Earhart, Alfred Hitchcock, Martha Graham, Jim Henson (with Kermit the Frog), Frank Lloyd Wright and Picasso. The commercial ends with a young girl opening her closed eyes, as if to see the possibilities before her.)

To watch the full commercial check it out on youtube here.

Questions

I am continually reminded of my own ignorance. My own inability to gauge people. I find that I can read people well, but I often have difficulty realizing just how they will respond when they are in that place. Over and over again I read a persons place correctly, what they are thinking and feeling, yet totally am blown away by their reactions from that place.

So this leads me to some questions. How do you have empathy?

Obviously empathy is not simply being able to read where a person is at and understand what they are going through. There must be another step that causes us to try to "put ourselves in their shoes" and understand what decisions they are going to make and the severity of those decisions.

My problem is I don't know how to do that. Because the emotion is not real to me, because I am not experiencing the same thing (no matter how hard I try) I simply cannot truly identify with the person enough to understand what decisions they will make.

Maybe one of you has some help for me. I certainly need it. Or maybe I don't? Who knows?

Maybe if I was able to be in their shoes it still wouldn't change anything... At any rate I want to know what you think.