There IS Such a Thing as a New Idea
Plenty of new writers parrot the quote:
‘There is no such thing as a new idea.’
I believe Mark Twain said this.
They parrot this quote so much that it becomes a part of their psyche.
Soon, they become limited.
They lose the concept of inspiration.
Plenty of smart folks fall for this trap.
They’ll say stuff like:
‘I used to believe there was such a thing as a new idea, then I grew up.’
My philosophy is radically different.
I believe you can’t help but have a new idea as long as your perspective is correct.
What is Value?
A few years back, I began to question what value was.
I was in a relationship where my partner was doing small things that would annoy me.
Was I the only one who was going through these annoying moments?
One example was that she would always fall asleep at the beginning of a show.
She was the one who suggested watching the show!
One day, I went online to see if others went through the same issue.
On Reddit, I saw there were a few other people who were going through the same issue.
‘My girlfriend keeps falling asleep when we watch a show. What should I do?’
Many people responded to this question with solutions.
Most of the solutions were:
‘Why don’t you just communicate your problem with her?’
I would soon use Reddit for many of my relationship issues.
The idea that I wasn’t the only person going through a certain situation made me feel calm.
A few months later, one of my friends asked me:
‘Dude, my girl still talks to her ex on the phone because they used to be friends before dating. Should I be annoyed?’
I told him not to ask me…
Ask Reddit.
He typed in his inquiry and added ‘reddit’ at the end.
That’s when he saw that someone else a few years back had an identical issue.
He went through the thread to see what the solutions suggested.
The solutions mainly were:
‘Why don’t you just communicate the problem with her?’
I learned something that day.
The standard solution to most relationship issues was:
‘You just need to communicate.’
Me and my friend didn’t really care about the solution.
What gave us value was when someone articulated a similar problem that we were experiencing.
When we saw someone else had the same problem, we didn’t feel alone.
The Journey vs the Idea
The point of the Reddit story was to highlight that we think we know what we want, but often, we are wrong.
- In a logical world, you would have thought that me and my friend were looking for solutions to our relationship problems.
- But in an emotional world, we were actually looking to see if others were going through the same situation.
We both knew the answer was to communicate more.
But we just wanted to feel like we weren’t the only ones going through the issue.
Likewise, in the content space, it’s not the ideas that fully matter.
It’s the lead-up to the idea.
Anyone can say:
‘You should be a kind person.’
If we are focusing on that, then yes…
There is no such thing as a new idea.
However, if we are focusing on how someone reached that conclusion, then we are dealing with radically different paths.
I knew it was smart to be a kind person when I once went through a really tough time.
I didn’t know how to deal with it, so I just went to the basketball court by myself and shot around.
Hearing the ball bounce and swish through the net is my therapy.
There was another guy who saw that I was shooting alone, and he joined me.
Most times, I hate it when people join me when I am trying to shoot.
This time, I felt good.
He said:
‘You seemed a bit down, thought I’d join you.’
We talked.
He was kind when I was going through a very tough time.
Someone else may have learned it was good to be a kind person because they used to be an evil person.
Nowadays, the change in behavior helps with their mental clarity.
We reached the same conclusion.
However, the paths were different.
Why Paths Are Important
The information age made all the information public.
We can search for any idea out there.
With all the information out there, people care less about it.
It’s just something they expect now.
In this new era, what blows people away is wisdom.
Wisdom is information that speaks to the nervous system.
If I say:
- ‘The speed of a star is X.’
The nervous system doesn’t care.
It feels nothing.
But if I say:
- ‘The speed of a star is X. This star is headed towards Earth in 3 months. We’re all going to die!!!’
Then you will care.
That’s because this statement relates to you.
When we stop focusing on the final idea and focus more on how we reached that idea, we accidentally speak to someone else’s nervous system.
If you have a profound message to share…
And you wrap that message in anecdote form, then others will digest the message from your paradigm.
Focus On Paths
There are different ways to reach the number 4.
- 1+3 =4
- 2×2=4
- 5-1 =4
For a long time, we were conditioned to focus on the 4.
That’s when the quote, “there is no such thing as a new idea” was true.
Nowadays, with all the information out there, we should focus more on wisdom.
Wisdom is the signal from our experiences.
This is when we stop focusing only on the 4.
Instead, we focus more on:
- 1+3
- 2×2
- 5-1
All three bullets are different from one another.
There is such a thing as a new idea.
When you switch your focus from:
- Final product -> path.
Then you can’t help but get a new idea.
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