Contrarian Cool

When you find a bend in the wall, go straight

When the signs point one way, deviate

On the path to salvation, the world is your creation

Saying yes to you, saying yes to me

-Vanessa Daou, Dear John Coltrane

In this age of daunting complexity and equal uncertainty, everything is being questioned and everything seems up for grabs. Futurists continue to tell us that we must become more and more skilled at sailing into the unknown, and doing so means embracing our limitations and reevaluating our ability to do anything at all.

It’s not surprising that a movement has emerged championing points of view that run contrary to the common ways of doing things. With our accelerating technologies feeding back upon our unsure psychologies, the zeitgeist has sparked an effort to come to terms with how the world really works, and is doing so by going Zen, embracing paradox, and reclaiming ironic solutions.

Welcome to the new contrarian cool. The upside of the irrational. The unexpected benefits of defying logic. The freedom in flying our freak flags. A trend with the resonance to provide us the leverage to navigate more steadily the never-ending flux. An approach that takes the path of the wise fool and rightfully basks in its crazy wisdom. This is essentially is a rediscovery of a way of being that has been with us for centuries; a Taoist-inspired perspective calling us to rethink popular notions and modes of being in favor of the complete opposite of what is normally expected for success.

Here’s 18 cool examples:

• Finding Your Howl
• Manifesto for Experimentation
• Lateral Thinking: A Textbook of Creativity
• Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
• Positively Wyrd: Harnessing the Chaos in Your Life
• The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety
• The Deviant’s Advantage: How Fringe Ideas Create Mass Markets
• The Freak Factor: Discovering Uniqueness by Flaunting Weakness
• Exploiting Chaos: 150 Ways to Spark Innovation During Times of Change
• The Time Paradox: The New Psychology of Time That Will Change Your Life
• The Paradoxical Self: Toward an Understanding of Our Contradictory Nature
• Visionary’s Handbook: Nine Paradoxes That Will Shape the Future of Your Business
• The Underachiever’s Manifesto: The Guide to Accomplishing Little and Feeling Great
• The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic at Work and at Home
• The Power of Positive Deviance: How Unlikely Innovators Solve the World’s Toughest Problems
• The Art of Non-Conformity: Set Your Own Rules, Live the Life You Want, and Change the World
• Creating the Innovation Culture: Leveraging Visionaries, Dissenters & Other Useful Troublemakers
• The Power of Unreasonable People: How Social Entrepreneurs Create Markets That Change the World