Potential is nothing:

Why Ideas Are Not Enough

#2 Ideas are air

As a kid, I thought that I was so smart for thinking about flying cars. I’ve glued paper wings to my brother’s little Ferraris and I would play with them all day. I then told my mom that one day, I will be the one who will invent flying cars.

In grade three, after watching a cartoon about doctors, I told her that I want to be the one who will find the cure for cancer.

In grade eight, after a Harry Potter marathon, I told her how nice it would be to have an invisible dress.

She just smiled every time I told her about my silly but big ideas.

I wish she told me that I was not the first one to think about flying cars, or finding the cure for cancer, or invisible dresses.

Because the truth is, no idea is original. Ideas are conceived when we try to blow the ordinary into something extraordinary. When the first automobile was built, someone daydreamed of a flying car. Or a car that can transform into a boat. Or all of the above.

“There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations. We keep on turning and making new combinations indefinitely, but they are the same old pieces of colored glass that have been in use through all the ages.” — Mark Twain

However, great names have outlived their generations for the ideas they had: we know who invented the first telephone, the first penicillin, and the first camera. Their names stuck around long after they’re gone because they did something about their wild ideas.

They did not just keep daydreaming about it.

They did not just keep it.

They did something about it.

We must do something about our ideas, too. And our ideas don’t have to be as groundbreaking as a telephone to amount to something.

And an idea doesn’t have to be new to be groundbreaking.

We are living decades after the Renaissance. We are working with the same old pieces of what is already known, in an attempt to frame it as something new and exciting.

Tiktok’s prototype was Vines.

Facebook’s prototype was Friendster.

We have all the prototypes we need.

Innovation, therefore, is just as important as new ideas.

Now, why are ideas not enough?

Potential Energy Won't Set Things in Motion

The first law of motion states that a body in rest will stay in motion until a force acts upon it.

Your great ideas won’t be great things until a force acts upon it.

We can attach any adjective we want to an idea.

A promising idea.

A new idea.

An ingenious idea.

But they’re still all ideas.

At one point, we all thought of flying cars. But it’s still a thought.

It’s still just a wild idea.

However, in the early 1900s, Nikola Tesla fancied a “world wireless system”. It was a revolutionary idea, a glimpse into the future.

Some years later, the internet was born.

Ideas are important. Write them down. Pass them.

And though it’s not enough, it’s still an investment for the future.

Potential energy won’t set things in motion. But potential energy still means stored greatness.

Ideas Are Air

Thoughts are air.

Ideas are air castles — which could be a good or bad thing. Air castles can change. Air castles can improve in a whim.

Ideas are like drafts. We can try to work on it until it seems impeccable.

But air castles, no matter how perfect it looks, are just air.

Ideas, as mentioned above, are drafts. We will never know its fortitude until we put it out for people to traipse around on.

Ideas Are Not Enough, But They’re a Start

If you came up with a business idea or a novel plot, then that’s great! Give yourself a pat.

Ideas are the abstract art of the human mind. It will assume a tangible form once we started working on them.

But putting ideas down, and playing with them, is a good start.

Glue paper wings to your ideas and the wind will take care of the rest.