the crazy ones

Of all the celebrated innovations that the "world's most valuable company" has put out in its lifetime, the thing that I admire Apple the most for is a 60-second commercial.  And it does not even refer to a single innovation, product, or service that the company has been responsible for.

Simon Sinek says "People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it."  And while I'm yet to buy a product from Apple (my cellphone of 3 years has been acting up for months now though), I would be the first to purchase a copy of this commercial if I could not view it for free.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Think Different.

What is even better than the video is the accompanying text.  I'm talking about the original version according to Wikipedia, which adds sparkle to the version heard in the video.  Note favorite lines in bold.

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 quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them.

About the only thing 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 see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

The best of the lot is a piece of insight provided by Steve Jobs during an interview with PBS.  I discovered the words of the late co-founder and former CEO of Apple on the "Concept, philosophy, background" section of the Wikipedia page for Think Different. Instantly, I was moved.

When you grow up you tend to get told the world is the way it is and your life is just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family life, have fun, save a little money.

That's a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact, and that is ‒ everything around you that you call life, was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.

The minute that you understand that you can poke life and actually something will, you know if you push in, something will pop out the other side, that you can change it, you can mold it. That's maybe the most important thing. It's to shake off this erroneous notion that life is there and you're just gonna live in it, versus embrace it, change it, improve it, make your mark upon it.

I think that's very important and however you learn that, once you learn it, you'll want to change life and make it better, cause it's kind of messed up, in a lot of ways. Once you learn that, you'll never be the same again.