Changing Gears
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Ideas
Every day it seems like new ideas come into my head. New products. New Businesses to open. New political schemes. New films to make. New New New.
But most of them are ephemeral. They come and go and I forget about them. Until I see them again later in someone else's work.
Emerson, in Self-Reliance, said this about listening to those ideas:
I want to follow my ideas. To take each one and give it the loving attention it deserves. But there is another side to all of these thoughts. I can find myself following a new one every day, or even every hour. Then I end up seeing none of them completed.
Melissa has a quote by Coolidge on her bedroom wall. It speaks to the other end of effectiveness:
So now I must put aside some of those ideas and concentrate on this one: we must make a movie. We have a story to tell. A story about how people are changing their world, one step at a time. A story about how our hometowns can learn from them and take the next step themselves. We need to tell a story about two people who have the will to press on to the next town and the next story of how people can make a difference.
Changing Gears represents a change in me. I need to harness the ideas that go into this movie and see them through to their conclusion. I need to learn the focus and determination that it takes to "solve the problems of the human race."
I will.
But most of them are ephemeral. They come and go and I forget about them. Until I see them again later in someone else's work.
Emerson, in Self-Reliance, said this about listening to those ideas:
"A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. Great works of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this. They teach us to abide by our spontaneous impression with good-humored inflexibility then most when the whole cry of voices is on the other side. Else, to-morrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another."
I want to follow my ideas. To take each one and give it the loving attention it deserves. But there is another side to all of these thoughts. I can find myself following a new one every day, or even every hour. Then I end up seeing none of them completed.
Melissa has a quote by Coolidge on her bedroom wall. It speaks to the other end of effectiveness:
"Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race."
So now I must put aside some of those ideas and concentrate on this one: we must make a movie. We have a story to tell. A story about how people are changing their world, one step at a time. A story about how our hometowns can learn from them and take the next step themselves. We need to tell a story about two people who have the will to press on to the next town and the next story of how people can make a difference.
Changing Gears represents a change in me. I need to harness the ideas that go into this movie and see them through to their conclusion. I need to learn the focus and determination that it takes to "solve the problems of the human race."
I will.
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