I read this article today and in compelled me to write a blog breaking my streak of not blogging for like the last umpteen years.
So Alex Murrell postulates that the entire world is starting to look the same.
This hypothesis is built on an experiment by two Russian artists that traveled to different countries, hired polling companies to survey groups of people on what type of art they like and then sought to paint it. Here are some of the results:
Here is the thing, first each of these are different in very important ways that are not discussed. Additionally, the similarities are also the result of the artists choices when presented with peoples preferences. For example, why are all of the trees on the right placed so similarly, I mean they could have placed the tree anywhere but they chose to put it on the right with placement guided by the rule of thirds. But in reality, look at the pictures detail, they are simply not very similar at all other than being an landscape with water, people and animals. Not really surprising to me.
He he goes on to site how Air BnBs are all looking the same, note even trying he could not find 8 pictures with exposed beams:-)
All coffee shops, what they have a counter, baristas, and an espresso machine? shocker!
All city skylines, wait tall buildings? NO WAY! At least he chose one that had hills in the back ground.
movies, cars, apartment buildings, books, tooth brushes, car logos… turns out that amazon has more than 10000 titles with F*ck of course there are more than 50000 titles with Hurt in the title.
and lets not forget women. Well he says people but chooses to only show wealthy women in a narrow age and body type and professes that all people are the same. They don’t look the same to me and certainly do not look like a representative cross section of people.
How is it that Alex did not find one influencer that was not a woman? Aren’t there any male influencers? Oh wait here is one:
Wow, he’s right looks just like every other influencer! NOT!
Alex is missing life, he is choosing to see the similarities and calling it out as bland rather than seeing all of the differences like the furniture, or art or clothes. This makes Alex bland not the world.
In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Pirsig notes that humans spend their first years of life learning to see similarities. To a baby and eagle and a finch are not similar at all they are as different as a rock and a tree. In childhood we learn to categorize everything based on similar characteristics and this allows us to move much faster through the world classifying things as food, threat, or security. By our twenties though we start to notice all of the subtle differences. At first perhaps its that a Ferrari is different than a Toyota. Later we start to notice all of the artistic differences in music, books, sculpture, and painting. If you are lucky you will come to realize that every person on the planet has uniqueness that spans beyond their stereotype. Most never get this far but I hope you strive for it!
The Tao of Todd 