Shuffle and Blink

NYT 1/16/05 Thinking May Not Be All It's Thought to Be By JOHN SCHWARTZ
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/16/weekinreview/16schw.html

Steven P. Jobs introduced one last week: "Life is random." It's attached to the iPod Shuffle, Apple's teeny new music player. The second comes from Malcolm Gladwell, a writer known for seeing revolutions in small things. The slogan is "Blink, don't think," and goes with his new book, "Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking," which argues that our instant decisions can be better than those born of long contemplation.

Apple, with the attitude of an artist and the eye of an anthropologist, has asked: How do we listen to music? What do we want from it? A response from the company, and its millions of customers, is that music is a kind of ambient grace, which blocks out the cellphone jabber on the train, the honking horn on the walk to the grocery store. And the result is that little white earbuds have become ubiquitous around the country.
"Blink" is also a creature of the moment. It says that a snap judgment is often smarter than a considered one. Mr. Gladwell speaks of a "second mind" that "sends its messages through weirdly indirect channels, like the sweat glands on the palms of our hands." He adds: "It's a system in which our brain reaches conclusions without immediately telling us that it's reaching conclusions."
Both slogans speak to the feeling that there's too much data and not enough knowledge, too many choices and not enough good ones, says Seth Godin, an author who focuses on marketing issues. "This desire to completely control the environment has started to unravel in the past five years," he said.

This cacophony, he said, has led the culture to the belief that, "You couldn't control all the choices; you couldn't control all the noise."
The alternative offered by Mr. Jobs and Mr. Gladwell, is not quite, "Don't worry, be happy," but a slightly more nuanced: Relax. Yes, life is random. But you can enjoy the ride.