johnmdemarco posted on June 02, 2010 20:09
I had a thought the other day (among others): The secret to a satisfying lifetime is to die with more interesting ideas than you have time to implement.
Few things make me feel quite as alive as the creative spark, whether elicited by a conversation, piece of music, powerful film, beautiful sunset, or so forth. To cultivate the embryonic impulse of an idea into something growing and wondrous is, for me, to taste eternity on earth. Those times when the well seems to run dry and everything about me feels boring and insipid are like an early dose of death.
The other night I sat still at a coffee shop, people watching and jotting down ideas in my journal. Five or six blog subjects emerged. I have a Word document with more than a dozen speaking engagement ideas as well, plus a framework for a novel I want to write after my current manuscript reaches the publication phase.
This, to me, is the good life—not measured so much by success and material trappings but by the energy of interesting challenges and creative outpourings. There is so much to learn and see and explore and seek to understand. It is tragic to give up too soon and settle for the fallacy that one has run out of new ideas.