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Saturday, October 13, 2012

Idea Economy

For my 99th post I'm going to stop with the dream journals and explain part of the reason I've been trying to revive my blog.

Fair warning: This post contains WAY too many metaphors and isn't to be taken too seriously.

I think of ideas as a commodity and a power source. Ideas are bought and sold, imported and exported, stolen and lost. They drive the engines of business, art, and community.

I'm no economist but I know that it is a good idea to export more than you import. If you don't, you will quite often fall into debt (current-world-events I'm looking at you). The same principle holds true for ideas.

Export your ideas, export them constantly, export them furiously, export them because if you don't, not only will you become mentally indebted to the ideas of others, you will become incapable of producing your own. Don't keep your ideas to yourself. That's like keeping a battery on the charger 24/7; It feels good to have full power and control but you can't really do anything with it till you take it off the charger and drain it.

Just because you're out draining your battery doesn't mean you'll run dry. Everyone around you is teeming with their own thoughts. Talk to people and use their ideas to power your own. Break down where you have dammed up your thoughts and let your ideas flow so others can power their own machinations of thoughts.

If you only buy into the ideas of others your mental factories will shut down and rust away, leaving you only the strip malls of popular thought that are selling the same stuff to everyone.

This doesn't mean you shouldn't buy into the ideas of others, quite the contrary. Just don't buy ideas that are seamless and finished. Instead buy the raw materials, the parts you need. Use the ideas of others to construct the most magnificent thoughts. Most of all just never let yourself become stagnant. It's awfully hard to start again if you've stopped, my blog being a good example of that.

So hopefully that all made sense and I didn't just wander off into endless confusing metaphors. But it's brain crack that I don't have to worry about now!
Keep your eye on the blog! Next Saturday I will publish my 100th post!!!

3 comments:

  1. Reading this made me think of my class at Dana's house from this morning. We went over chapter twelve, and moved on to Chuangtse's commentaries. I'll just copy it direct from the text:

    "ACTION OF THE WIND ON WATER. When a wind passes over the river, it takes away something from the river. When the sun shines on the river, it also takes away something from the river. Yet if you ask the wind and the sun to keep on acting on the river, the river is not conscious of its loss because it is fed by a living source. Such is the gradual, intimate action of the water upon the earth, the gradual, intimate relation between shadow and substance and the gradual, intimate action of material things upon other things. Therefore the eye is harmful to (the innate capacity of) vision, the ear is harmful to (the innate capacity of) hearing, and the mind is harmful to (the innate capacity of) understanding. All functions are harmful to their respective organs. When the harm is done, it is beyond repair, for such effects accumulate and grow."

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    Replies
    1. Thanks for the reply! I like the concept. We need to have another discussion on Chuangtse's commentaries, the last one was most delightful.

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  2. I feel my post is relevant to the sudden introspection of Youtubers lately.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGmAekTPD5c

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