Breaking Paradigms

I am currently spending a lot of time breaking paradigms. This is much tougher than it sounds.

When I was younger I learned about paradigms and mainly the fact that they are meant to be broken at a certain stage. Back then, it sounded so simple. Maybe I was just too naïve or my young eagerness could not forecast how paradigms are really formed and how deep they can go.

There was this famous story (sounded like a fairy-tale at the time) about the Swiss-watch makers who refused to invest into quartz-based watches because they were comfortable and successful enough with the stable machinery behind the mechanic watches. The Japanese decided to go for the quartz approach and conquered a huge portion of the Swiss-watches’ market. Also, after a series of watch-makers going bankrupt in Switzerland, they finally moved to quartz-based models practically constituting a survival strategy.

In the back of my mind there was a little voice saying something like “How could the Swiss-watch makers not see the advantages of quartz? It was so clear that quartz was the trend - the future!” I was really naïve. They could not see it because they were not listening to their story in the 21st century like I was where quartz-watches are simply ubiquitous. They had to take a huge leap of faith to believe that a new way of doing things would work. Besides that, there was a long tradition of generations doing the “right thing”. Why would they break this long established paradigm? They had no apparent reasons for that.

I have broken lots of paradigms in my life. By “lots” I mean a number with probably 3 or even 4 digits. But as I get older, I notice that it becomes harder and harder to know exactly what to break. This is probably because it is simple to break a routine in your life when it has been there just for a couple of years. It is a completely different story when breaking paradigms that have been entangled in your routine for decades.

Moreover, there is a gigantic pressure of gurus and the media around them trying to force you into one direction or another. We look for inspiration in places crowded with ideas following certain trends. This is not actually “breaking a paradigm”. This is “following the trend”. Even though a new “trend” may eventually break current paradigms in the future, this does not mean you are breaking a paradigm, you are just going with the flow and normally these “trends” are just new packages of the same paradigms.

At this time I am looking for killer-paradigms to be broken. I am looking for those paradigms that will shape the future even if I may be considered crazy now. I have tried to stay away from gurus and similar wannabes and questioned everything on the horizon. I am also working on those deeper paradigms that I currently have. If they can be broken, there is a huge chance I will find something new.