Violinist Joshua Bell’s Experiment – The Metro Subway Zombies
Violinist Joshua Bell’s Experiment is one which sheds light on the nature on human nature.
In 2007, violinist Joshua Bell basked inside a busy Metro station in Washington DC.
He played for 45 minutes and was ignored by the thousands of people who walked past.
Only 6 people stopped to listen to his music.
Most of his listeners were children.
At the end of the day, he managed to make only $32 from his efforts.
Here is the kicker.
Joshua Bell is a world-renowned musician.
His instrument of choice is a Stradivarius violin which costs anywhere from $8 -$20 million.
People regularly pay thousands of dollars for front row seats to his musical performances.
He clearly is no joke, and yet only a few people stopped to listen.
The same thing happened to Cristiano Ronaldo who was also disguised when he went to a public square with a soccer ball.
He did a range of tricks with his ball and was ignored by most people.
Just like Joshua Bell, children approached him and played with him.
When Ronaldo took off his disguise, hundreds of people rushed to him to get pictures and autographs.
Joshua Bell’s Experiment Lesson
The average person is sleepwalking through life and is unable to comprehend beauty.
You can have a transcendent athlete or musician perform in front of them, and they wouldn’t be able to get out from their daze.
Once people see other people approving of something, they, too, feel compelled to approve.
The Social Proof cognitive bias runs most people making them behave like cattle.
They can’t decide for themselves and need to be nudged in different directions.
This is why the news, social media and mainstream movies are such effective propaganda tools.
Children are different.
Children still have independent thinking and are more likely to notice subtle nuances.
Hence why children stopped to witness Joshua Bell and Cristiano Ronaldo.
They haven’t been brainwashed by rules.
They still want to live life spontaneously rather than living on autopilot like adults.
How to raise your awareness
Raising your awareness is about getting out of the autopilot subconscious stupor.
Learning to see the world for what it is and not what you have been told.
The way to do this is to disregard 99% of the stuff you have learned from institutions such as school, work and university.
Institutions in which other men chose what beliefs should enter your mind.
Begin a campaign of self-education.
Become an autodidact and lover of knowledge.
Chase your curiosities and read the material which seems wacky.
Listen to the people who have been branded as lunatics.
Learn to sit in the middle and entertain opposing views on a topic without getting butthurt.
Modern society encourages black and white thinking.
Choosing political parties.
Supporting traditional religions.
Having a clear profession.
As soon as you start identifying with a side – Liberal, Labor, Republican, Democrat, Christian or Atheist – you become blind.
You are then forced to see the world from the lens of the sect.
To follow all its rules.
If you are a communist, you must love the communist manifesto.
If you are a capitalist, you must look up to John D. Rockefeller.
Nonsense.
Disregard that and become like water.
Follow Law 48 and ‘Assume Formlessness’. (Those who know, know.)
Don’t be afraid to change your routines on a whim.
Never remain stagnant because not moving is akin to death.
The faculty which separates Man from Beast is awareness.
Animals act like automatons with predictable routines.
Study an animal for a year and you will have it pretty much figured out.
You will know its sleeping patterns, what it eats and when it likes to mate.
Study most humans and you will have just as much knowledge.
The movers and shakers of the world are not afraid of change.
They are not the same person they were a year ago.
They are moving constantly upwards and re-inventing themselves.
Changing locations.
Acquiring new skills and tastes.
This is what keeps them able to notice the subtle nuances of change.
They notice change because they are change.
They are awake and can see the hidden opportunities as they arise.
Eyes wide open, they can notice beauty.
Stop to listen to Joshua Bell or watch Ronaldo.
Think for themselves and craft their own destiny.
This will be your fate, too, once you realize that to have something different you need to be different.
Let go off fitting in with the masses.
This advice has been echoed for thousands of years in different texts.
The Corpus Hermeticum says,
“Avoid Conversation with the multitude or common People, for I would not have thee subject to Envy, much less to be ridiculous unto the many. For the like always takes to itself that which is like, but the unlike never agrees with the unlike.”
To be free, you need to create your own path.
Do this and you will be one step closer to living and dying well.