An Observation on Ideas: Part I

I would like to begin this essay, with an observation, one which I believe to be accurate, but one nevertheless that I invite all thoughtfulness and consideration to dwell upon. And while I do believe it to be accurate, I also know it to be young, perhaps even immature, and therefor necessitating much furtherance and guidance towards a maturation that could be beneficial to many.

But before I state the said observation, I would like to make a brief point, yet a point that is worthy of serious consideration. The point is this — that the human being has turned writing, talking, and communicating in general, into an act of claiming ownership to the ideas that are communicated. This is something immensely important to see clearly. For what actually happens in communication (written or verbal) is that an idea(s) is expressed, shared from the one party (the beholder of the idea) to the other party (the listener). It is the idea that is actually being shared, not the person speaking to the idea. And this must begin to be understood by wider swaths of human beings. Because what happens when ideas are misplaced and identified as the person expressing the idea, is that the idea escapes from the open air needed for accurate and comprehensive observation of the idea. (I acknowledge that there is a form of communication that is entirely human, but does not include the faculty of thinking — in fact this form of communication is common — but it is not what I am speaking to here.)

Medium is filled with this sort of inopposable communication of ideas. People expressing ideas, big (albeit arbitrary) ideas, that then receive no further consideration from the reader. Why? Because for the reader to take hold of the idea independently, chew on it, churn it through all of his intellectual prowess, would be an act of violence against the one who put the idea out there…. so this is the thought, or the internet ethic that has developed. It has developed because our incredibly slow perception that currently confuses self for the ideas outside oneself. Essentially we grow attached to the images in our field of perception at an alarming rate. But this act of attachment to images is an atrocious act, and if allowed to grow further into our social constructs, will be a huge contributor to the death of a part of the human being necessary for the development of our higher faculties.

So that said, I invite, no demand, your deepest thoughts on every word uttered herein. Yes I recognize that I am probably biting off a little more than I can chew. But I do want to be clear that it is thinking I am demanding, not your personal inclinations or aversions towards certain ideas… but your thinking! Perhaps you don’t even know what that means. Well, let us discover a little bit about it together. And now, let’s get back to that observation, it states:

There are two principle categories of ideas which can be most easily and accurately labeled as new ideas, and old ideas.
Let me elaborate here on what may seem as an entirely obvious observation by beginning with an explanation of what are old ideas. Old ideas are precisely what it sounds like, ideas from our past that is. Ideas that have taken form through the workings of our ancestors. They are ideas that fill books, build houses and churches, create art and music, they are ideas that have been with us in time, for some time. Nearly every thought, and therefore every idea, currently presenting itself upon this Earth are old ideas. My best guess would be that more than 99.9999999% of ideas currently in the minds of humans’ are old ideas. And that is not such a bad or harmful thing in itself. Until, the old ideas are proclaimed, or attempted to be, as new. This is a problem for several reasons.

First and foremost, an old idea proclaimed as new, immediately severes itself from the historical perspective it had gained. Meaning — it disacknowledges ancestry, and the work of our living past. This is a terrible act of disrespect to the realm of the dead, and the realm of idea. It blinds us to understanding, because understanding depends on a whole picture of something. Ideas are no different. Ideas must be seen in totality of what they are, and this certainly includes their past, going all the way back to their inception. Yes ideas do have an inception point.

The inception point of an idea is the moment it travels from the timeless realm of spirit to the human realm of time and space. This inception point is something that we have lost ability to connect with. And I believe it had to be so (but that is a different essay altogether). But without the ability to connect to the inception point of idea, we are left with only those ideas that have already been birthed into the human realm, the old ideas that is.

Now here is something important to consider, which I will use an analogy to demonstrate. When a human being is born, what enters into this world as a child, is undeniably a being that is entirely more pure, more perfect, than any aged human being. This is not to shame the aged human being for being impure or imperfect, that would be foolish. We must become so, imperfect human beings that is (again another essay). But it is to say that at the birth of a human being, there is still intact the most pure representation of that being. It is expressed so clearly in the eyes of child. Perfect purity.

Ideas are not so different in this regard. An idea is most pure at its inception. At that moment of threshold crossing from timelessness into time. But, just as the maturation of a child leads to scarring and tarnishing of that child, the further any idea works itself into time the more opportunity that arises for the idea to get pulled away from its purity, or intention.

Still, it will someday be known again that ideas are true gifts, given to us from the not-human realm, but given specifically to guide and aid the human realm. But even this has changed. The idea well has dried, and they no longer spring forth from the heavens towards our heads. Now, we must work to ascend, in our thinking, back to the realm of inspiration and idea if we are ever to find ourselves at that inception point of new idea again.

So then, what is a new idea….. this is the category that is much more difficult to define. For that which is new, is not yet understood. And if you think about that, it may explain one of our primary hindrances — we are not worthy of new ideas, because we are not willing to accept our lack of understanding of the ideas already here. Humility is the opening of space, which is essential to reach a new standing place (or find a new idea). And humility we lack. Yes, I speak for humanity in that. Which again wouldn’t be such a big problem, except that we continue to grant leadership to people who quite often most seriously lack this humility. And so the ideas guiding humanity are old, tired ideas, not even capable of being furthered themselves, let alone furthering humanity.

But if you will now, please return to the brief point I made at the beginning of this essay on the ownership of ideas. Because this point is in big part responsible for blocking new ideas from ever entering into the realm of human thought. You see, we actually have the arrogance to believe that we no longer need the assistance of those great spirits which instill pure idea into our Earthly realm, and have done so since the beginning of the human being. And because we believe this with such fervor, it has become so. We believe it so adamantly, that we actually quite purposefully prevent ourselves from contacting anything which would ask our personally held ideas and percepts to loosen from our grasp, and perhaps maybe even remake themselves into a new, probably more accurate, form. We choose, sometimes unconsciously but often consciously, comfort to accuracy, deceit to honesty. And so, we continue to grab the past with little regard for everything that made the past, instead preferring to pull it into the present moment with our grubby hands; meanwhile, faithfully believing old ideas, improperly (ignorantly) understood, can shape a bright future.

Actually, more and more these days, I question if we do actually believe in a bright future.