Downtown Moonrise (mixed media oil on canvas) Available here.
“Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas.” ― Marie Curie
Where do ideas come from?People ask me this about my writing and art-making so often that I think I better come up with a clever answer. Or maybe just any sort of answer would do.
When I was a kid, I just figured they came from me. From something inside of me poking at me screaming, make a story! I figured ideas came from my imagination. End of story.
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But as time passed, I realized that ideas were not just inside me but outside of me, too. They were everywhere. Ideas start as inspiration, an overheard sentence from a stranger, a melody, a scent, a hazy memory. Sometimes, they come in dreams that shove me out of bed, so I’ll write it down and not forget.
I think I get my ideas from the same place everyone gets their ideas from. From the world. From our feelings about the world. From emotions, from the experience of pain and love and curiosity. From always asking, could this be something? Could this be something more? Could this be something different?
“A writer does not come up with ideas, questions, opinions, or stories. They come, and he or she writes them down.” ― Mokokoma Mokhonoana
I think ideas find us in the first place because of the human need to make sense of the world. Through our creations, we develop an understanding of sorts. And before we can create anything, we need ideas to find us. And I believe they are floating about in the ethers all around us and all we need to do is pay attention and choose the ones that light us up to explore further.
But really, I don’t care how ideas find me, Whether it’s God, the Universe, physics, metaphysics, or just life itself… as long as it never stops coming, because if we stop turning ideas into things,
what are we even doing here?
Keep creating. Keep showing up.
XO, Annie
A version of this article was first published on Medium. It’s a bonus Monday share for my groovy Substack subscribers. :)
