being open
“Let everything happen to you. Beauty and terror.” — Rainer Maria Rilke
If you could ask someone a question without them knowing who you are, what would you ask?
That’s what I’ve implicitly asked people to do, by opening a platform for anyone to ask me questions anonymously. (You can find that website here)
The questions have varied from kind compliments to aggressive criticism.
But an interesting question someone recently asked me is “Where do you get all of your ideas?”
This post is an attempt to answer that question.
My mom recently shared to the family group chat that she had picked up A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara.
I initially thought of warning her against it, but I decided not to. As the kids have grown up, and as she grows up as well, she’s picked up reading more and buying a wider variety of books than she may have a few years earlier. A Little Life is not an easy read, but I’m glad she’s open to even considering reading it.
I know many people who believe that they are set in their ways — that whatever personality, preferences, likes, and dislikes they’ve picked up during their young adulthood will be their identity for the rest of their lives. They’re steadfast that they dislike X genre for books, or Y genre for films. They think that they’ve learned all that they can learn, or felt all that they could feel, and the rest of their lives are just to live within whatever they’re already comfortable with. They enjoy staying in their lane.
I think that’s a shame.
I’d say that my knowledge is mostly useless.
Ask me what’s a recent TikTok trend, and I’ll start parroting whatever the latest trending sound is. Ask me what’s the capital of Iceland or Kenya, and I’ll tell you straight away. I enjoy knowing a lot of things that may or may not have real-world applications (most of the time they don’t).
If someone were to pick my brain, I’d be surprised if they weren’t disappointed with the contents of it. But I like knowing a lot of useless things. I like having various bits and bobs of knowledge in my head.
I’m just an average 20-something. I don’t spend a lot of time working on a life-changing project, building a company, or creating content. I do spend a lot of time scrolling through social media, watching movies/TV shows, reading books/articles, and/or playing games — and the times when I’m not watching a screen, I’m staring out a window or running down random streets.
I’d like to think of myself as a professional time waster.
But I also believe that no time is wasted if you enjoy whatever you’re doing — so maybe call me a professional time enjoyer. I’m happy to just pitter and patter through life, and get as much input as I can.
I define ‘input’ as everything that you absorb. That includes the lessons you learn in class, the learnings from a great book, or an inspiring quote from a TED talk. But for me, it also includes the obscure fact you get about hanger designs from a Youtube video, or a certain feeling you get from listening to a song, or a pointless conversation you have with your friends.
I think that there’s this belief that knowledge and experiences are only worth it if they are directly useful to your life. But I’d like to counter that and say that everything that happens to you in your life — the useful and useless, the good and bad, the joys and pains — is worth something.
Experience — in and of itself — is valuable. It’s input.
To get good output, you have to get a lot of input. So on the question of where I get my ideas for my writings, the answer is I get my ideas from everywhere. I get ideas about being more positive from a brief quote in a book I didn’t particularly like. I get ideas about enjoying life from my favorite movies. I get ideas about coping with feeling inferior from my own emotions of feeling inferior.
I don’t think I have a certain process for looking for ideas. They come to me, on sunny days, on a run, in the middle of a paragraph, in the darkness of my room, in my Tiktok bookmarks, on a cold morning, in between cups of coffee, after saying goodbye to my friends, as questions from anonymous strangers.
I don’t know if it’s the best process or the only way to get ideas. It’s not consistent — there will be weeks where I will not find anything to write about. I’m sure someone else out there has a more consistent and sustainable way.
Please share if you’ve found an ideation process that works for you, I’d love to hear about other people’s processes.
In conclusion, to get more ideas, I’d recommend that you don’t go looking for them — just let yourself be open.
Go walk down a street you’ve never been to. Meet new people. Go travel to a new city. Eat something completely foreign. Read a book you think you’ll hate. Date someone you’re not sure about. Send an email to someone you admire. Try a new hobby. Accept questions from anonymous strangers. Watch pointless Youtube videos. Shoot your shot with someone.
I believe that in almost all things — writing, reading, watching, traveling, dating, living in general — you should be open to trying as many things as possible, even if you think you won’t like it.
You win or you learn. You find something you like or you find something to write about. The worst choices make the best stories.
So go out there and try to do everything you can while you still can.
Be open. Let things come your way.
