“The Rubber Band Syndrome vs. The Mental Depth Charge”
(This essay is provided as an educational service by the Downsize DC Foundation)
Quote of the Day: “Man’s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes
Surely you’ve had this experience . . .
* You marshal your evidence
* You deploy powerful arguments
* And you thereby convince a friend to drop his or her support of some government policy.
But then, you don’t see your friend for a while . . .
* He or she is left for weeks or months, swimming in the river of Statist propaganda that streams from every media outlet
* So that when you meet again you find that his or her mind has snapped back to where it was before
It’s as if the two of you had never talked. He or she has completely forgotten . . .
* The evidence you marshaled
* The arguments you used
* The fact that he or she ended up agreeing with the case you made
Jim Babka calls this the “The Rubber Band Syndrome.”
* Visualize yourself stretching a cartoon brain to a larger size
* Visualize the brain snapping back to it’s former shape as soon as you walk away
This Rubber Band Syndrome makes a mockery of our persuasion efforts. It causes us to waste time, energy, and money. But here at Downsize DC we consider it part of our mission to prevent wasted effort, to make difficult things easy, and to constantly accomplish more with less. That’s why . . .
We want to find a cure for The Rubber Band Syndrome.
Is there a cure? We think there is. In fact, we think there may be two cures . . .
Cure #1:
It seems clear to us that we have to equal the river of Statist propaganda that streams from every media outlet every day. One way to do that is something we talk about constantly . . .
Operation Everywhere.
For those who are new to this list, Operation Everywhere is our plan to reach a size that will enable us to make our ideas seen and heard by everyone, everywhere, every day. In other words . . .
We can solve the problem of minds that snap back to their previous dimensions as soon as our arguments are no longer being heard, by creating conditions under which our arguments are ALWAYS HEARD. This is clearly a full-proof solution to the problem, BUT . . .
It’s not an easy solution. Operation Everywhere will be hard to execute. It will take time to get there. So, this particular cure doesn’t meet one of our most important criteria . . . making difficult things easy. Which brings us to . . .
Cure #2:
This Oliver Wendell Holmes quote is very famous: “Man’s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.” But the experience we’ve all had with The Rubber Band Syndrome tells us that it’s actually very difficult to stretch a mind in such a way that it REMAINS EXPANDED. So what we need for Cure #2 is obvious . . .
* We need ideas that are so large and powerful that they do not allow the mind to shrink back to its former dimensions.
* We need ideas that EXPLODE the dimensions of the human mind to vast new boundaries.
* I call this kind of idea . . .
The Mental Depth Charge
You’ve probably had this experience too . . .
* You say something powerful to someone, but it seems to have no immediate effect
* Days, or months, or sometimes years pass, until . . .
* Eventually the person you said the powerful thing to comes to you and says . . . “I’ve only just now understood what you said way back when, and . . .
“Understanding it changes everything.”
You see, your idea needed time to sink-in, just like a “depth charge.”
But for this to happen the idea has to be something that will actually stay in your friend’s mind for the time required, and not be popped out by The Rubber Band Syndrome.
We’ve all had these experiences. We’ve all laid mental depth charges in the minds of others, and had them placed in our minds too. Often these explosive ideas come about by accident, in the flow of conversation, but the trick we want to master is to create Mental Depth Charges by design!
This means we need a laboratory to conduct experiments, and a factory for production.
I have good news! If financing permits, we’re days away from unveiling our new factory/laboratory for creating Mental Depth Charges. This is the first of the 43 new tools we’ve promised to create, each of which is aimed at helping us to add at least 1 new net recruit per day to the Downsize DC Army. As you can see . . .
Our aims are modest. We believe this new tool can accomplish even more, but we don’t want to over-sell it. After all, it’s an experiment — a laboratory. Fortunately, it’s also something that can be funded with TAX-DEDUCTIBLE donations, because the new tool we’re about to unveil is also . . .
A new home for our non-profit educational organization, The Downsize DC Foundation!
To be clear, most days, the Downsizer-Dispatch comes from DownsizeDC.org, Inc. But this new project is part of the educational mission for the Downsize DC Foundation.
We’ve put our staff and vendors to work so that we can deliver this exiting new tool, quickly. Thus, part of the team needed to complete this project is is already hard at work. Now, we need to activate the rest of the team — and that’s YOU.
Organizational forward progress and timely delivery of this new tool requires about $6,400 in new income. Look . . .
That amounts to just twenty one cents per member of the Downsize DC Army. Or, just one person could pay it off in one big bite by contributing $6,400. More likely, we will need something like the following . . .
* 2 people to give $1,000 = $2,000
* 4 to give $500 each = $2,000, bringing us to $4,000 total
* 4 to give $250 each = $1,000, bringing us $5,000
* 10 to give $100 each = $1,000, bringing us to $6,000
* And a few dozen 10s, 20s, and 50s to round us out at $6,400
Thanks to monthly pledgers, we’re able to get started. But to keep growing, we really need 21 new pledgers. Please consider making or increasing a monthly pledge.
Can you be one of the people who make this happen?
If so, we will publicly say “Thank you,” by publishing your name in an upcoming Downsizer-Dispatch, as well as on the new website. Of course, if you wish to remain private, you can indicate so on the secure contribution form.
Thanks in advance for your confidence and support.
Perry Willis
Vice President
The Downsize DC Foundation
The brief essay contained in this message is copyrighted by Perry Willis — (c) 2010. Permission to re-distribute or reprint this message for non-profit educational purposes is granted and encouraged, as long as proper attribution is given, and you provide a link to the original source. Permission to use this message for commercial purposes is denied.