Ideas are like squash

Have you ever grown any kind of squash or similar vining plant?

My experience with them is: I throw seeds in the ground or the pot or the bed, and either nothing happens (“Did we plant something in this area? I thought we did…”) or it grows and takes over.

Likewise, when a creative idea bubbles up in my mind, it takes one of two routes.

It either gains a lot of traction and the more I think, talk, or write about it, the bigger it gets.

Or it fizzles and dies.

There are no ideas that, at their onset, take a reasonable route of sustainable growth. Some that get carried out do eventually normalize in terms of energy and attention, and just because it grows exponentially at first doesn’t mean it will bear fruit.

This includes ideas about 

  • writing 
  • photography 
  • podcasting
  • how to rearrange the furniture
  • a situation and how it connects to other bits
  • gifts
  • ways to make a day or an event special 
  • my next business project

and more that I’m not thinking of.

Certain that I was not the only person whose brain worked this way, I mentioned it—in context—in a virtual meeting not long ago, and one of the other participants agreed wholeheartedly.

I suspect we’re not the only two.

How do creative ideas and your brain dance?

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