Why does it take a crazy person to change the world?

To start off our inquiry into this question we watched Apple’s “Think Different” campaign, as the people in that video would be the “crazy” people we’d be studying. We also made sure to confirm what crazy really meant. There are 3 main categories of crazy, such as mentally insane, a change maker and someone enjoys dangerous activities. 

https://youtu.be/cFEarBzelBs

Out of all the “Think Different” candidates, I chose John Lennon. I knew of him because of The Beatles and for nothing else really, and I knew there was much more to him than his music. His life with Yoko, his activism and more. 

When we presented this project, it was just any old keynote. We presented a modified Pecha Kucha style keynote, which means that each slide had only photos, that stayed up for only 20 seconds before automatically switching to the next. This type of presentation required a lot of prior rehearsal, but ended up going quite smoothly.

John Lennon was born during WWII in 1940, he grew up in a small cottage residing in Liverpool with his Aunt and Uncle. He grew up with the absence of his parents, a distant father and the death of his mother. This left him with quite a traumatized childhood. John always walked his own path and had blood opinions about the world and the people living in it. Even with his independent personality, he cared a lot for people and always carried the burdens of others on his shoulders.

Music was introduced to John at a very young age and connected with it. His mother taught him to play the banjo and piano and bought him his first guitar. He loved Buddy Holly and Elvis, these artists inspired him to create his own band called The Quarry Men, which eventually became The Beatles, once he met Paul McCartney. 

John met Yoko Ono at an art exhibition in 1966. They connected instantly and thought alike. They got married on March 26, 1969. She encouraged John to use his passion for music to protest. He fought for the anti-war movement, Native and African American rights, and feminism. John’s activism blossomed once he left The Beatles in the late 1960’s. One of John and Yoko’s more well-known protests was their Bed Ins: for peace, to protest the Vietnam war. Many believed that these non-violent protests of theirs weren’t making a difference. But John always saw the world differently than everyone else. 

“If you want peace, you won’t get it with violence” – John Lennon

Tragically, Lennon died in December 1980, John was shot in front of his apartment in New York by Mark Chapman. One year later a memorial in Central Park, named strawberry fields was created to commemorate John’s legacy. John was thought of as many things, but one thing he definitely wasn’t was normal. He was crazy enough to believe he could change the world and he did. John Lennon used his artistic talent to fight for his beliefs, eternally altering the capabilities of musicians forever. 

Throughout the duration of this project, I was shown what a “crazy” (the good kind) person is really like. You don’t have to be insane or loud to make change like John Lennon you can make change peacefully, in the words of John Lennon himself, “all you need is love” and the world will notice.