What ideas want
Ideas want to become, transform, metamorphose into something—beautiful, useful. They are alive, and hence like organisms want to reproduce and spread. An idea is potential energy—a source of power.
Like living beings they have an identity. Ideas—and also humans—are as a river which is never the same, still it carries an identity, an essence.
Ideas move the world because they are a source of creation—of inspiration. They are responsible for making the world an interesting place—non monotonous and optimistic. They make us act, innovate, and change the way we do things.
We humans produce ideas all the time, every second, every minute. We are a factory of ideas. Hence, responsible for what they become.
Ideas have a lifetime, and this lifetime depends on when and where they are born. The time and place is crucial because they have to live on a time where they can feed on complementary ideas, also find good shelter. Many ideas are born out of time, hence they don’t nourish, there are no resources for them to feed and grow strong—also weak and lazy hosts. The place—or host—where they are born matters. Resources have to be there, else they will start to fade away. They need a good host that educates them and helps them mature. Ideas have to be fed.
They need resources in order to survive. They feed on other ideas to become a new one. The Internet and increase connectivity make them reproduce and spread—like a virus. When an idea moves to another host they mutate and multiply. Something beautiful is that spreading ideas make them multiply, that is, if I tell you my idea we now have 2 slightly different ideas. Every host interprets the idea and feeds it with its own context. Like organisms they want to spread, and are subject to the laws of evolution.
The purpose of an idea is to become something. We think of products, and of selling, because we are now dependent on money for survival. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Ideas are much more than that.
Ideas die because of us—-humans. We creators—parents of an idea—are responsible of what it becomes. Something important to understand is that we have to feed the ideas—until a certain point. Someday we have to be mature enough to let ideas—-our offspring—go their own way. And the path they take depends on how we raise them.
Ideas are yours. If the idea comes to you it is now your idea, it is not someone else idea. It doesn’t matter where this idea comes from, if it is from a friend, a teacher, or a book, it is now your idea. It is not the same idea because it has your touch, you have interpret it according to your history, biology, environment, and society. Don’t let them die.
We can save ideas from dying in simple ways
Write down your idea. On a very young age ideas fade because of lack of attention. Put in them in a drawing or write them down on a notebook, this can prolong their lifetimes for them to get the food and appropriate time and place they need to scale up. Always carry something to write, ideas come in the most unexpected places.
Tell your idea. We can’t be selfish, ideas are our creation but if we are thinking about their future we have to be responsible. Telling an idea is helping it reproduce is increasing the chances for them to become.
Look for mentors. Ideas need to grow, to educate, to mature and there is a lot of people that can feed your idea—help it take form.
Revisit your idea. Every time you revisit an idea, the idea is reborn, it matures, it grows.
Publish your idea. This is more powerful that just telling someone about your idea. It “immortalizes it”—while the publication lasts of course. If your idea reproduces—-moves to a new host somewhere else—-and takes form, you have done great.
Make your idea. Ideas want to become something, it can be either a book, a vaccine, a movement, a story, a machine, or even a new education paradigm. Make a prototype.
Ideas change the world. Ideas can save or improve the quality of our lives. They can also be weapons of mass destruction. So be responsible.