Ideas
Ideas are the source of everything. They are the most powerful thing to learn from human history. Everything man-made around us was an idea once upon a time. Let that sink: From guns to computers, all things we take for granted today were just an idea someday. Good chance, they faced their fair share of ridicule before reaching us. Everything, we have done so far is by standing on the shoulders of giants. Everything that we are doing now, will form the platform for future generations.
Ideas are to human-led evolution, what “seeds” are to biological reproduction. For every 1 million seeds, we see 1 tree, for every million ideas we see one materialize to life. Darwin's evolutionary theory applies similarly to ideas. Ideas compete for survival every day. Capitalism vs Communism, fossil vs renewables, android vs iOS — always competing. Ones that survive the longest are not the loudest or the sharpest as social media may make us believe.
Only the prescient survive. Ones that were true then, are true now and will be true tomorrow. Two of the most powerful ideas that have survived the course in history are money and law (by extension religion). Ideas also keep evolving: pigeons then, WhatsApp now; Sieges then, tanks now.
Thus, one of the best things we as humans can do for ourselves, our loved ones and for humanity at large is to keep generating ideas. Before you badger me through “ideas are a dime and dozen; execution is everything”, it is important to understand not all ideas need to fructify into successful creations. Less than 0.001% eventually do. It is natural selection. Much like apes took a million year to evolve into humans like us, breakthrough ideas needs the first 99.999% of ideas to surface. To think any successful idea belongs to just the creator is an ego-fuelled, myopic understanding of the world. It is the thing winners do to show how they are different. Or historians to simplify the world for us. But that does not make it any truer. The elitist of creators realise this fallacy. For they know that countless others have contributed to their success in ways that they cannot even comprehend. For they are merely lucky to be at the right place, at the right time to pluck the fruits from other’s toil.
Message from Brian, CEO of the hottest IPO (CoinBase) in 2021.
When it comes to ideas folks say there are two primary skills, building ideas and selling ideas. I concur 100%. But there is an even more basic skill, philosophizing.
*When it comes to ideas, the only real revolution is in the enlightenment of the mind and the improvement of character. The only real emancipation is individual, and thus the only real revolutionists are philosophers and saints*
So where do we go from here? All of us could do more by contributing to the human idea farm. It is important to define an idea — it is a philosophy of life or a product or a practical improvement in the design of everyday things. An idea is a concept, the best explanation of most events. Beneath the complex surface, an elegantly simple concept to explain why things are the way they are. An idea is a connection between past and present; between present and future. Few things worth considering:
Generate ideas: To get ideas, we need to stand on the shoulder of giants. We do that through reading, observing and reflecting. It is surprising how few of us read and are willing to learn every day. The day we think we know everything, we cease growing. The day we feel know something, we slow growing. Only when we realize we know nothing, we start growing.
Nourish ideas: We need to understand that ideas emerge from a collision of variety. There are two things here — one, that ideas need to meet and mate. So important we spread it, only when it spreads to others does it mate and mutate. Second, ideas like seeds need the energy to flourish. Optimism is the fuel for ideas. One needs to feel confident in the future and have faith in their ideas doing good to themselves or to society to take them seriously. And this is heavily dependent on our world view. Be okay to wander, often in solitude, but have the patience to let ideas grow on us and then on others.
Evaluate ideas on truth: Ideas are delicate. Especially at incubation. Much like all early seeds — saplings, puppies and babies; mother nature nourishes its children in tenderness. The same applies to ideas. With ideas there is no good or bad. Ideas should solely be evaluated on the truth they carry. Best advised we stick to probabilities when ascertaining ideas vs absolutes. Eventually, the best ones will outlive the rest. No single human knows the absolute truth. Unless we are Gautam Buddha. So let us keep an open mind, till our mind opens.
Finally, a man is nothing but an idea. A unique fragrance amongst countless others. How long we last is a function of how we ideate on ourselves.
*Excerpted from Lessons from History (Ariel and Will Durant)