The Inception of an Idea

And a little persuasion

In response to this prompt by the amazing Squeeze the Avocado, I shall now persuade you using only the power of my words.

Wait, no I won’t. I mean, because I know that you know some things that I don’t know. Know what I mean?

Allow myself to introduce myself. I’m Christopher Robin, also sorta known as the world’s averagest man the last bunch of years. Who cares. I’m not terribly smart, but I am a thinker. Many times I do that in front of and with you all. I hope you don’t mind.

Persuasion, eh? Why would I bother trying to persuade someone of anything, when each arrive at a decision on their own accord? Is persuasion a show of power over someone? Or, is it a matter of simply introducing them to a new idea and allowing acquisition to take its course? Wei Xiang wrote an amazing piece about this phenomenon:

Wei is a true philosophiser. Or something. (Wei, you’re awesome!) But he’s right. If I do lack conviction it’s not necessarily a bad thing. People who lack conviction don’t necessarily force their ideas onto you, nor do they attack yours. Or maybe I’ve been proven wrong so many times in my life that this is the lesson I’ve learned from it all.

I started out with the intention on writing a well-written and well-thought-out and researched piece, but that’s not really my style. It’s not that well thought-out researched pieces of work are beyond my capabilities, but that should be done by experts. I would rather write by the seat of my pants. And also, research and all that sounds like an awful lot of work. So I will respond to the prompt in my own way. Maybe that, itself, will persuade you to go your own way.

I used to think I had some conviction about a few things. But life is funny. It teaches us that, whatever we think, father Time will change it. Or is it mother time? You could call this humility, but semantics and all that. This is where Wei’s “acquisition” comes into play. Life is really a constant acquisition of new input.

And if you direct or allow this input into your feedback loop, you find that life is more like a spiral. A constant and ever-moving, perpetually growing spiral. You fly through the air linearly while spinning helically around an axis. (Is this even correct? Don’t answer that. It sounds cool to me.) Perhaps this is why the mind slows as we age — we’re constantly sifting through the spiral of data we’ve accumulated over our lifetimes.

Back to persuasion. The more I ponder this idea, the more I realize how idea inception works. An idea, in its most simple and condensed form, when planted and allowed to sprout and grow, can change the trajectory of your life.

So is it actually persuasion if the idea takes its own shape over time? Or perhaps this is an example of indoctrination or manipulation if given enough time.

But even if an idea feels like its permanent, it absolutely is not.

Do you think you’ll be the same person in ten years as you are now? Fat chance. In this TED talk by Dan Gilbert, he points out that we magnificently underestimate the amount of personal change that will occur in a decade. In other words, time changes EVERYTHING.

Like Inception (the movie and the idea), this idea took root in my mind. The very idea that who we are today won’t be who we are in ten years made me wonder why we deem things so important in the first place. Everything about us will change. Our preferences, our stories, out lives, our needs. We are not a finished product. We never will be.

If that’s the case, why would I bother trying to persuade someone of something I know will change regardless?

I remember arguing with a friend one time about the existence of a deity. I don’t even remember which of us was arguing for the existence or non-existence. (There was a lot of alcohol involved that night.) But to this day I think of that argument, and I think, neither of us believe any of that anymore. It’s all changed.

Not to sound defeatist or pessimistic, but the awareness that everything will change makes everything seem a little more pointless. Or, depending on your philosophical bent, maybe it frees the mind to be open to new ideas. Either way, why do we hold onto these convictions?

Open your mind and heart and look around. Be persuaded. Be subject to acquisition. Maybe you’ll learn something.

But practice persuasion in moderation.

Here’s a completely benign, no-pressure invitation to persuade or be persuaded. And also a couple people just because they’re awesome: Yana Bostongirl, JL Raven, Terry Barr, K. Barrett, Chris Zappa, Charlie Tango, Carlos Garbiras, Paul Combs, yesnodunno, Kasey Sparks, Will Hull, Jane Lynch, aaand that’s enough. No need to tag bomb.

The original prompt found here: