Advantage: Disobedience

I want everyone to think about someone they admire for something great they did, invented, or changed. Now if all of those people were put together to see common traits, two traits would emerge above the rest: courage and disobedience. No matter what time period or industry, it’s visible in those who strive for change. Starting off with the science industry, Gilbert N. Lewis, who in 1916 proposed the idea of the covalent bond and the Lewis model, which were both met with skepticism, but by not listening to skeptics—who in this case were the “norm”—he was able to make his idea a revolutionary chemistry concept that we used a lot as a foundational topic in AP Chem; going all the way to the sports industry, the tennis legend Billie Jean King, who in 1970 boycotted against the pay gap in the tennis world, leading to equal pay in tennis today, where at the most recent Grand Slam both players won five million dollars. These are just a few examples, but the depth and time this idea goes back is endless. It’s not just a concept, it’s what makes us human.

This idea of disobedience is never straightforward, however. In the sports world, people often assume the best ALWAYS will rise up and that you must dedicate everything you have to sport in order to become the best. Such absolute statements must be taken with a grain of salt, as there are always exceptions and other variables that need to be considered, and those are what make the greatest players' stories interesting. Nick Kyrgios, widely considered to be the greatest player that never was, broke all of the “rules” of being a professional tennis player. In a sport flooded with etiquette, he brought a chaotic energy that changed up the game. He would show up to games after drinking the day before, not have a great diet, and would constantly break rackets. Almost the complete opposite of the idea people have of being one of the best in a sport, but would anyone disagree that he was an amazing player? No. The new view he brought to the game was a testament to speaking your truth and being yourself in the world of tennis that for decades has held uptight.

In class, when we read Thoreau’s piece about Civil Disobedience, we saw how impactful one person standing out against the crowd was. Consciousness is what makes us human, and fighting for that consciousness is what makes change in the world. Thoreau did that against systems of power on the macro scale of a government, while Nicole Dennis-Benn did it on systems of power within her own mind and family. No matter what scale or topic, being disobedient against the common truth everyone believes leads to progress in any area and inspires people to do the same.

So in a world becoming littered with the same ideas being spewed by AI, be yourself, be conscious, and be disobedient.