Mining ideas
And has anyone seen my phone?
There's no such thing as a bad idea. That said, I accept the possibility that many of mine are terrible by relying on quantity. Tons of bad ideas. Over the last few years I’ve been working out how to put them on record. That’s pretty much why this newsletter exists.
How to mine your best ideas, even the undeveloped ones?
First up, kick start with movement. Physical, cultural, getting out the house-tural. Be proactive and focus on diverse, quality input. Reflection will follow. Then abstraction. Simple.
Join the dots of your mind's chaos to draw loops between connection and meaning. Reflection often meets abstraction. And it can happen subconsciously in mundane ways. Sometimes the chaos keeps looping. Other times you're sketching out something (seemingly) profound in shower condensation because it’s too important to wait.
Follow this practice over time, and multiple abstractions will become buried in your mind together, layered like sediment. Sometimes forced pressure (creating and capturing ideas even when you’re feeling uninspired) results in misshapen, irregular gemstones. By building creative form around them, you polish them and they become more refined.
“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein
It’s alchemy of sorts. You’re not always going to transform dirt into something noble but why not get some grit under your fingernails and mine improbability all the same?
The days you stumble upon rock-solid abstractions make it worthwhile, even though their clarity is fleeting. Lift the gems high and they fall away, splitting out colours like a prism. And that’s exactly what you want.
Ideas are most precious the moment they shift to show you something else.
Rage ain’t nothing but a number
This is for anyone who ever had a precious hour of freedom and resolved ‘not to waste it’.
This is for anyone who zipped their keys in their running tights, but misplaced their phone before they left. Anyone who spent the next 20 minutes looking for it.
This is for anyone who stopped looking. For anyone who had the epiphany. They can do things intentionally without the record. No data, no problem.
They never cared an age ago. In fact, no one cared. There was one instinctive pace. It was their own. And it just felt kinda nice.
Like all things; As in running, as in life.