Thinking is painless . . . for most!

Many years ago, a friend of mine asked me, How do you do to have ideas? I tried to answer her, embarrassed as I was, almost as much as her, as truthfully as I could while I tried to think of what it was she actually meant? She was an intelligent girl, surely she had some clue of how to actually conceive ideas? I lost contact with her, for different unpleasant reasons, but I have through the years often thought back to this question. It is a question that to me sounds so odd (like how do you breath) that maybe there is something in it. Can it really be so that there are people, without ideas? Aren’t ideas something fundamentally human, like speech?

Ideas by itself is nothing, you cannot have ideas in a vaccum, there has to be something triggering them. For me, ideas are intrinsically linked to interest and to the question “what if? Artists tend to have an interest in things humane, how people live, thought processes and destinies etc.  Engineers in machines and construction. Economists in how companies find their ways in markets. But the process for the idea to take shape is the same. You look at an issue, something of substance to you and then you start playing with it, like a small child asking 56 questions a second, until something grabs you as an alive entity, strong enough to stand on its own. Suddenly you have before you something, a model of something that is universal and true. Simple.

But there are crucial moments in this with the most dangerous part being the part of playing. You have to let the idea spiral, or as my professor used to say, one has to keep knocking on the door of imagination, you have to let it go, work on it, do not let it stop. It means you have to stand your ground, looking for the truthful moment and not be affected by fashions and how “other peole do it”. Stay clear of quick fixes and look for the genuine. But that in turn means that you have to know what you want, you have to know what your “story” is and stick to it.

Today I find to my amazement, a world around me full of artists. People who never in their life showed any interest in the arts, never even been to the museums, never read a proper piece of literature, suddenly finds the need to express themselves through an artistic medium. Just look at all the talent shows where thousands line up, all claiming to have a need to express themselves. How come, what has happened?

My explanation to this, could be consider slightly radical, so please be ware, is that there is too much shit around. Everywhere you turn, you find quick fixes, where ever you go you find clichés, already conceived ideas (by someone else) who are being put together with other stolen ideas to create something that resemble a piece of art. But it doesn’t have anything alive in them, just aesthetics, if you are lucky. We need to clean it out and put it in the right place because what it does, is it desensitise us from seeing the true expressions. We need to start asking for more and not settle for a fast food concept of thinking. We need to think more, not meditate, not humhum sitting with your legs crossed, just purely think and see where it will take you.  It could be on a fantastic adventure or romantic situation. It could be a hilarious concept or a fantastic piece of art. And it will be only yours

So try, let’s have some ideas, trust me it doesn’t even hurt !