Baron’s Blog: Diary 23

diary 23(The Jedi Mind Trick)

I went to the Superbowl this weekend and had a great time. The Greenbay Packers are world champs! I love how in America you can beat the rest of America and be called a world champion! That sums up American spirit in a nutshell.

Christina Aguilera sang the wrong words to the national anthem, and people sang right along with her until the very end. This made me realize that a staggering amount of people actually don’t know the words. Maybe it was the high notes that she hit made people forget the lyrics weren’t right. People will go with something if it sounds good right?

This made me regret not knowing this Jedi mind trick back when I was in college. If you don’t know something the solution is simple, just hit a high note or say something that sounds good.

For example, when Professor Langford would happen to ask, “Baron, can you give me your thoughts on question number 5?” Quickly panic mode would set in because I wasn’t ever paying attention in her class due to the fact that I was either texting or playing angry birds (the boomerang bird is the most useless thing ever). Think Baron think! Don’t let Langford catch you off guard and win! My mind is racing, what can I do, what do I say? I haven’t been paying attention for weeks, and now it’s finally caught up to me.  Quickly I glance down at the bracelet I have wrapped tightly around my wrist the reads in all caps W.W.C.A.D? Of course! The answer is so simple, What Would Christina Aguilera Do? Then in the midst of my intellectual stupor the answer is clear. I open my mouth and belt out a mind numbing high note. A high note so overwhelmingly powerful that people forget the question themselves and even more importantly that this is something I should for sure know the answer to.  Whew, crisis averted!  However, slowly the mental fog produced from my high note begins to wear off. People start thinking “what the heck, that answer wasn’t right at all; wait all he did was hit a high note!” By the time people realize that I have completely bamboozled them by just signing a tune that sounded good class is over and I am out the door.

Indeed this Jedi mind trick is powerful, so powerful that Christina Aguilera used it to intellectually paralyze an entire stadium and make them sing the wrong words to the national anthem.  I won’t lie, I sang right along thinking the whole time “gees something isn’t right about this. Oh well I’ll just sing along because everyone else is.”
This Jedi mind trick is based upon the principal that if something sounds good, the majority of people will accept it as correct and the ones that don’t accept it as correct will go along with the majority because they don’t want to be alienated.

For those of you who have your thinking caps on today I’m sure that you picked up on the seriousness of this ‘ mind trick’. Hopefully the severity of what this Jedi mind trick can actually do if put in the wrong hands has been unveiled.
After the Superbowl this whole Christina Aguilera drama about her singing the wrong lyrics sat unpleasantly heavy on my mind.  I wasn’t sure exactly why, or what made me so uneasy about something that seemed so trivial. Was it the fact that she actually got in front of the whole world and sang the wrong lyrics to the national anthem live? No I really don’t think that’s what bothered me even though she should have known the correct lyrics. Maybe it’s that everyone in the stadium including myself, and some of you at home sang along till the very end? Hmmm, yeah ok that did bother me. I think what bothered me most about this whole situation is how people bashed Christina Aguilera after they sang right along with her incorrect lyrics knowing that they were incorrect.

Ok, everyone put on your thinking caps and answer these questions to yourself. Do you listen to the melody or the message? Does beautiful singing appease you even though the lyrics are incorrect? Can you be led astray from something you know is correct because someone says something that sounds good and everyone else follows? Do you sing along even though you know the lyrics are wrong simply because you wanted to sing along with the crowd? Most importantly, once you realize you have been singing the wrong lyrics the whole time do you point the finger at the lead singer and blame them? Or do you realize that you should have known the lyrics yourself?

I mean its east to say “gees Christina Aguilera is such a dumb blonde; she didn’t even know the lyrics to the national anthem!” Oh really now? Well what does that make all of us that followed Christina’s lead?

I guess what I’m trying to say is this. The world is a crazy place right now. It’s full of conductors that have entire choirs singing the wrong lyrics but making beautiful melodies. It’s full of entire choirs that blame the conductor after they realize the lyrics that they have been beautifully belting for so long are incorrect. It’s full of people who don’t take responsibility for their actions.

So if you are a conductor are you conducting your choir properly? If you are in the choir are you singing the correct lyrics? And if you are in the audience do you know what you are singing along to? What type of person are you? God Bless.