My Pursuit of Becoming An Idea Machine — 10 Ideas at a Time
I have always been fascinated by ideas. Whether grounded in necessity or wholly fantastical, ideas are the natural, practical application of the imagination. The more ideas that I have been privy to, the more my mind has been opened to how little I really know. As a great thinker once pointed out:
“As our circle of knowledge expands, so does the circumference of darkness surrounding it.”
― Albert Einstein
So I have learned an enormous amount from listening to people’s ideas, which has only made me hungrier to study people’s philosophies, their dogmas, and their creative output. Some of my best memories from college were sitting around in a computer lab with my friends, discussing the potential of and arguing different viewpoints for some ridiculous idea that somebody had thrown out there. The more absurd the idea, the more fascinating the conversation that followed (and the more and more our homework got pushed back into the wee hours of the night). I cherish those memories not only because of the new information I had learned, but because I had learned so much about the people around me. I am convinced that one learns more about a person from the way they approach a discussion of an idea than in any other way. You see their face light up, beaming with passion and fascination at an idea for something they want to create or a possibility they now want to explore. A reticent entry into a discussion tells you how risk-averse a person is, or perhaps what topics of conversation and inquiry they find to be uncomfortable. As they unravel new paths in the idea, you start to delve deep into the caverns of their psyche, discovering how much this person ponders the world and their place in it.
But more often than not, our daily conversations spend too much time in the superficial, where there is little hope for truly understanding and empathizing with another person. It’s the same, regurgitated ideas from the news, the Reddit threads they’re browsing, the TV shows they’re watching — in other words, no new ideas. But I find myself powerless in those situations. I find myself clawing at the back of my brain to find something to say, because I don’t have another idea to contribute. So I’d fall into the same trap of criticizing, gossiping, and lamenting about how awful a situation was— that’s what everyone does, right?
It was only when I stumbled on Tim Ferriss’ blog post about doing the 21-day No Complaint Experiment that I realized the folly of that type of thinking. Every word you say, every thought you express, shapes your mindset and your emotions. Therefore, every complaint was turning me into a cynic, little by little. And I had been doing this for years. So I decided to make a change. Tim Ferriss said that he “defined ‘complaining’ for [himself] as follows: describing an event or person negatively without indicating next steps to fix the problem.” So the answer was not to commiserate, but to see what I could do differently the next time.
I wish that I could say that this was simple to do. But for some reason, I found I had idea block. I looked around me and saw the same crappy things that everyone else was complaining about and identified no real solutions for them. I racked my brain to think of more positive actions I could take, next steps for myself, but I came up empty. That’s when I stumbled upon James Altucher’s blog post “The Ultimate Guide for Becoming an Idea Machine”. It was in that post that he described an “idea muscle”, and how it atrophies without constant work outs, just as any other muscle in the body would. I realized that years of neglect had left my idea muscle withered and puny.
So I decided to take James’ advice. I am going to start writing 10 ideas every day to keep flexing my brain. I am going to let my imagination loose, and write down every idea, no matter how ridiculous or far-fetched it may be. The point is not to write the best ideas of all time: it’s just to write ideas. The more ideas I write, the less ashamed I’ll be of putting possibly stupid ideas out into the world. I can produce innovative solutions, increasing my utility at work and with people who I care for who are struggling and need a different way out of a predicament. And most importantly, I will shift my thinking from a negative, problem-oriented view to a positive, solutions-oriented one. That, I believe, will make a world of difference in my life and the lives of those around me.
And so, the journey begins. I will write a separate blog post for my top ideas for each month of the year, and I will post the links below. Here’s to a productive, positive, and creative 2019!
