Boxed Thinking

It seems that nowadays we often have our thoughts enclosed within a certain plane of consciousness. Perhaps consciousness isn’t the right word to use.

Novel ideas. I’ve always had a debate on whether or not a combination of two pre-existing ideas is considered something novel. Bread and cheese, grilled cheese. Novel? Perhaps. 

But deep inside us, we’re always striving for something big. Something TRULY novel. Not just some merger of two other ones. A real invention. And then we think. We think and think and think some more after we’re tired of thinking. But why does it seem like it’s harder to think of something when there are no limits to our ideas?

Right now, I am aboard a shinkansen bullet train going at over 170 mph towards Kyoto, our next destination. On the last train ride, I had this exact page open on my word document, yet I didn’t write anything. I just couldn’t think of anything more to write about regarding this idea. Ironic, isn’t it?

There’s been a friend I’ve been getting really fond of lately. Let’s call her Doodle. I gave Doodle my blog a few weeks back and as she’s been reading it and discussing it with me, she suddenly had the thought of starting one herself. I heavily encouraged it.

Currently, she has one post. Earlier today, Doodle told me that she was shy with her writing. I wonder why, because from chatting with her, I know she’s full of funny ideas and super entertaining to talk with. Even if we just copy pasted our text conversations into blog format, I think it would still be entertaining to read.

Doodle said that my writing was “so eloquent and smooth”, yet I find that quite surprising considering how I never do any edits to my writing. Everything you see is my raw first edition. It’s a stream of consciousness because I usually do each post in one sitting, just typing away. Our thoughts go all over the place all the time, so how could it possibly be smooth?

I just had a thought. What if we imagine ideas to be these rough, uneven rocks. The more they run around in our heads, the more they flop around in the washing machine that is our mind, the smoother and more refined they become. Smooth stones skip further than rough ones.

Mmm, not always. You see when it comes to skipping rocks, besides picking a good stone, there is also technique in the motion itself. There needs to be enough spin on the rock when you flick your wrist at the release point to glide across and the angle at which the stone enters the water should be roughly 20 degrees above the horizontal for optimal skipping distance.

What I’m trying to get at is that ideas are a starting point. Good ideas alone won’t get you very far though. Yet, executing a poor idea well can yield fruitless results as well. Only good ideas paired with proper execution can go the distance.