Craft

Ideas must be caught

A mediation on making room for ideas and bringing them to life

Ideas are like nomads, wandering the universe in search of a partner.

They drift momentarily through our dreams, our thoughts, our emotions, our curiosities — in hopes of finding even the smallest sense of resonance.

Ideas hang in the tension between their desperate desire for expression and their fragility.

Seeds of the infinite. They are faint, shy, and elusive.

Ideas must be caught.

Like fluttering butterflies in a luminescent meadow, they only rest on our souls for a moment before the breeze beckons them onward to be caught by someone else.

Ideas are impatient.

They must be acknowledged, coaxed, embraced, nurtured, kindled—now.

Ideas are fleeting.

Like the last faint ember in a summer campfire, hesitate, ignore, miss, reschedule them for even a moment and they’ll disappear.

Ideas are free.

We are conduits, mediums, surrogates, stewards of their greater truth.

To breathe life into an idea is a privilege. Given to those who seek and create space for them to dwell and grow. It requires a stillness of spirit, presence of mind, and an unquenchable curiosity to discover what an idea desires to be.

A meaningful life is the product of a life designed to raise ideas well and a resolved courage to vulnerably set them free into the world in the face of fear, uncertainty, cruelty, and danger.

Make room for them and they will fill it, and you, with joy, meaning, and purpose.

🤝 Stay in touch

I send an email several times a year with a handful of the most interesting things I’ve written or uncovered at home, abroad, and on the web.

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