Monday, February 3, 2014

Underneath the Surface


Malcolm Gladwell is not your average speaker.  Most people, asked to speak at a TED talk, would not bring up the subject of spaghetti sauce but that is just the kind of person Malcolm Gladwell is.  He has a different perspective on things then most.  One of the topics he discusses is the Bible Story about David and Goliath.  This story is about two armies who each send one person from their army down to fight.  Goliath represents one army.  He is an extremely tall giant with armor and a sword.  David represents the other army and is merely a shepherd who refuses to wear any armor at all.  The only thing that he has are five small rocks and his shepherd’s stick.  David ends up winning the fight by throwing a stone and hitting Goliath in the forehead with the impact from the stone making Goliath unable to get up.  Everyone takes this story as a tale of the underdog but, Malcolm Gladwell does not.  He believes that David was the favorite all along.  Gladwell’s odd reasoning brings out points that no one has considered before. Malcolm Gladwell takes every basic topic he is given and goes more in depth to find another message.  He looks for the story underneath the story. 
            Malcolm Gladwell takes things that interest him and goes a step farther by looking under the cover story.  A phenomenon, such as the ones Gladwell investigates, that I have observed is why people favor certain color m&m’s others.  To me this is silly because all m&m’s taste the same.  The colored coating is not flavored, it is just a color that surrounds the chocolate.  Maybe some people like certain colors because it’s their favorite color or that color makes them feel a certain way.  For example, maybe the color yellow makes them happy.  Why some of these phenomenons exist is a mystery but, looking a little deeper may reveal the answer.  

If you would like to see TED talks by Malcolm Gladwell and others here is a hyperlink to the TED talk website:


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