Well, not always. Usually I think of a way to apply an idea that already exists. Sometimes that results in something cool, neat, and/or fun. Other times it results in people going “meh” and saying how it is no different than something else.
For example, the most recent 24 Hours of PASS had a new hook with an all women format. Did I invent the concept of 24 Hours of PASS? No. Did I invent speakers? No. Did I invent women? No. My idea was to combine all three. The execution of that idea was carried out by many others such that it resulted in a very successful event. But it was not an original idea. It wasn’t even an original application of an event, as I am sure there have been other all-female events in the world already.
I recently read a blog post by Seth Godin which made me think about how many original ideas there have been in human history. I came up with three: fire, the wheel, and whoever first decided to eat the belly of a hog. That’s it, no more. Almost everything we have today is a result of those three ideas, combined in some form. Even Einstein himself conjured up his greatest work by using a “thought experiment” which were exercises that built upon knowledge he had learned from others and he simply wanted to apply to his thoughts.
And there is the key. It is not the idea itself, but the application (and ultimately the execution) of the idea that matters most.
Sometimes I think my ideas are original, but I always know that someone has probably already done something similar. And I have learned to let my ideas go because I can’t execute on all of them, all of the time. I have learned to be comfortable with the fact that someone else executes on what I thought was “my idea” (although it was hard letting go at first). In a way it is like a proud parent that watches their children go out into the world without them.
But it wasn’t my idea to begin with. It came to me from somewhere else. Even the idea for this particular blog post came form reading Seth’s, and it inspired me to write down and share my thoughts.
Inspiration is good. Without inspiration, where would we be?
Douglas Hofstadter agrees with you when he wrote “Variations on a theme as the crux of creativity”.
I paraphrase very loosely, but he agrees that all creativity is mashups of older ideas. He might even say that the wheel was an idea mashup of a bolder and a stick, and that cooking bacon, was just the next logical progression after discovering fire.
Michael,
Never speak poorly about bacon again.
As a writer, you quickly learn that a) there really is nothing new under the sun and b) you need to make people think otherwise.
And bacon is a mashup of meat+smoke+perseverence in the name of fat.
Oh NO. I thought writing about ideas was MY IDEA!!!!
Oh well,s I’ll still write that blog post anyway. Expect a linkback sometime in the next few weeks!
Too funny, I never thought about the idea of writing about ideas, I *do* wonder where that inspiration came from…