For most of my life, I operated under a simple, seemingly kind rule: It’s better to not upset people than to upset them. It felt like the path of least resistance, the grease for the wheels of social harmony. I believed keeping the peace was the ultimate virtue.
I was wrong.
This philosophy, I’ve come to realize, is a recipe for a life of quiet compliance. It is the silent contract we sign to preserve our comfort at the cost of our potential. The uncomfortable truth is this: if your life isn’t occasionally uncomfortable, you’re probably not making a difference. You’re maintaining the status quo.
And let me be clear: that’s a perfectly valid choice for many. The world needs stewards as much as it needs disruptors. No judgment here. This is the type of society I want to live in — one where, as long as no one is being directly harmed, you can do you, unapologetically.
But if you feel that itch to push, to question, to build something new, you must make peace with the fact that you will, inevitably, upset someone.
The Attention War and the Art of Masking
This dance of disruption happens in a world drowning in stimulation. The internet has overstimulated our collective attention span. Is it any wonder we see a global spike in ADHD-like symptoms? For many, this is a clinical reality. For others, it’s the natural human psyche buckling under an unnatural barrage of information.
We’ve all become adept at masking — the skill of blending in, of appearing focused, of navigating the noise without sticking out. It’s a survival skill for the digital age. But beneath that mask, our minds are explorers, craving not just content, but meaning.
I see stories for their themes. I’ll listen to anyone who can hold my attention, because in this economy, attention is the ultimate currency. And what we choose to pay attention to defines the world we build.
Words, Intention, and the Gray Area of Free Speech
This leads me to the tools of disruption: words. They are slippery symbols, changing meaning with the tide of culture. Existing words morph; new ones are born daily.
I am an advocate for free speech. But more importantly, I am an advocate for the intention behind free speech. This is the eternal gray area. I believe context and intent matter profoundly. A taboo word can be a weapon of hate or, within a specific context of trust and history, a joke, a term of endearment, a reclaimed piece of identity.
We’ve seen songs and art from past eras “canceled” or forgotten because language that was once commonplace is now incendiary. While sensitivity is progress, we risk losing nuance. Sometimes, those words were descriptors of a reality that held historical value. To erase them is to whitewash the texture of the past.
Why Dire Straits Understands Our AI Anxiety
Consider the Dire Straits classic, “Money for Nothing.” On the surface, it’s a 1985 romp with a groundbreaking music video. But listen closer, through the lens of our transition from the Information Age to the AI Age.
“That little faggot with the earring and the makeup… We got to install microwave ovens, custom kitchen deliveries… That ain’t workin’, that’s the way you do it, money for nothin’ and your chicks for free.”
The song is a blistering satire from the perspective of a blue-collar worker watching the rise of MTV rock stars. He sees their work as illegitimate, effeminate (“faggot” was a common, if ugly, slur for weakness), and infuriatingly lucrative. He feels rendered obsolete by a new, unintelligible machine — the machine of media, of image over labor.
When I listen to that line I hear underlying jealousy. They get to be whoever they want to be, and are better off emotionally and financially for it. People always argue, not everyone can be a rock star, but I think that’s just a traditionalist perspective. The barrier for entry into the entertainment industry has never been thinner. Just because you work a job most of the week, doesn’t mean you can’t be expressing yourself in your free time.
Isn’t this our exact anxiety today? The fear that the creative, the intellectual, the “soft” work will be automated or devalued by a new machine — the machine of intelligence? We watch AI generate art, code, and music, and a part of us, like the song’s narrator, scoffs, “That ain’t workin’!” The song isn’t endorsing the narrator’s view; it’s holding a mirror to our perpetual fear of the next disruptive wave.
Your World, Your Customized Exploration
The narrator yells, “I want my MTV!” It was a cry for access to that new world. Some of us missed that era of monoculture. But what we have now is its evolved descendant: a customized universe of exploration.
We have our own MTV via YouTube, Spotify, and podcasts. As Stevie Wonder said, music is a world within itself. So is the internet. So is every niche community, every deep-dive forum, every curated playlist. We are all explorers now. The digital frontier is infinite, and we can explore it from our living rooms.
This isn’t the only way to explore — the physical world, human connection, and lived experience are irreplaceable. But it is a powerful new option in the vast menu of human experience.
The Takeaway: Discomfort is Data
So, here’s the conclusion I’ve reached, and it’s the one I leave with you:
Your discomfort is data. The flutter in your stomach when you speak up, the heat in your cheeks when you challenge a norm, the resistance you feel from the world when you try to change something — this isn’t a sign you’re wrong. It’s a sign you’re engaging with reality. It’s the friction required for movement.
Stop fearing the act of upsetting the status quo. Instead, fear the silence of a life spent never daring to utter a disruptive word, never sharing an unpopular idea, never building something that might, for a moment, make the world uncomfortable on its way to making it better.
Do not seek to upset people gratuitously. But seek, with clarity and good intention, to make a difference. And trust that the difference worth making will always, always, disrupt the comfortable before it comforts the disrupted.
Originally published on Medium. It lives here now — new essays land in the Journal first.
Leave a Reply