The Journey of an Idea

Just some random thoughts about thoughts

Origin of Ideas

Ideas — you know what they are. You’ve encountered them (umm, every once in a while). Maybe you got one today, perhaps, one right at this moment. They’re those shiny things that travel faster than the speed of light. If, at the moment that it is going to hit you, you’re not wearing a helmet and gloves and standing in a catching position — well, you’ve missed it.

It might enter in and stay in the recesses of the mind sometimes if it favors you. And, if you’re fortunate, it might shine upon you and decide to call you home.

I have always wondered where ideas come from. Are they living entities that move through time and space? Do they have minds of their own that decide where they want to set up their tents? Or, do they already live in our heads and show up at the suitable chemical configurations of the brain. In that case, when did they get there — into the brain. Are they formed and reformed as we read and learn and take in all the massive amounts of signals from numerous sources over the days, months, and years. How do they evolve? How do they come and go? I am always fascinated by this.

I like to joke about it with a rhyme —

Where did it come from?
When did it go?
Why did it come?
Well, I don’t know!

There surely might be scientific explanations for this, but it feels like the answer requires us to peek into the realms of the soul and the spirit of a person.

Sometimes ideas are — meh! Sometimes they’re okay to spend a while with. Sometimes they’re brilliant — you want them, you desire them, you love them with your whole heart..and so on and so forth.

In the book Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert talks about an astounding story about an idea that seemed like it traveled from her to Ann Patchett. I was astonished as I read. I almost was withholding tears as I retold the story to my husband.

She explained how she had an idea about writing a book — a love story set in the jungles of Amazon. And as she described her idea, I kept going back to Ann Patchett’s book ‘State of Wonder.’ It was almost the same story with only some details changed, but its heart was the same.

I thought the worst about Ann Patchett at that moment — maybe she stole Elizabeth’s idea? But just as these bad thoughts were coming to me, I read the sentence where Elizabeth Gilbert said something like — and then I met my friend Ann Patchett. Ohh! Okay.

So then I thought, okay maybe since she got all busy with her boyfriend’s troubles, she shared the idea with Ann, who then wrote about the same story by changing a few things here and there. But NO!

That idea had come to Ann Patchett by itself. When she shared the story about how they sat and discussed the origins of their unique ideas over breakfast and discovered how surreal the whole experience was, I was blown away.

And what’s more astounding was that the time when Elizabeth had lost faith in that idea and had stopped trying was about around the time that Ann had got the idea and had begun work on it. No foul play, absolutely! They were stunned. And so was I as I read the anecdote. I was amazed but not shocked — I was not in disbelief. Do you know why? I think, or rather I believe, that ideas could do that, most certainly.

With Ideas, Respect is a two-way street!

How many times when you have put off penning down the idea at that moment, you’ve lost it. No matter how hard you try to recall, it is gone. Didn’t it just come out of your head, then where did it go? Why won’t it come back?

I’ve learned the hard way that if you don’t put your efforts into honoring the idea and giving it the due diligence by noting it down and or taking the required actions, you will lose its blessings.

It is not just noting it down, though. Working on it is equally important. Or it just fades away, little by little, with time. If it is an idea about a book or a poem or even an article on Medium, and if you don’t work on it soon enough, it won’t have the power to light a fire even though the spark was captured.

Everything you see was once an Idea!

Try this! Look at five things around you and think of how they must have originated. For example, here are five that I see right now in front of me — my coffee mug, A book (Notes to Myself by Hugh Prather), my phone, a wooden book stand, my son’s toy car. Each of these things must have begun with an idea.

My coffee mug has this quote on it — “DAD, thanks for sharing your DNA. Now we are both awesome! — Your favorite” (no, I’m the MOM who is just using DAD’s mug). Someone somewhere had an idea of that cool quote.

The book ‘Notes To Myself’ by Hugh Prather was born with an idea. When nothing else was working after writing for two years, Hugh had an idea to combine excerpts from his personal diary and collate them in the form of a small book that is read by millions today.

Google, Zoom, Amazon, Social networking sites, and other things that have brought the world closer than one could ever imagine were all once just ideas.

Even the laws that we obey were once ideas that were put forth and debated and turned into laws.

Come to think of it, even Medium, where we spend our waking hours, was once just an idea somewhere in the founder’s mind.

My Prompt: What are your thoughts about Ideas?