I want to invent the machine that turns my ideas into reality. The problem is that I need the machine in order to do that.
Ideas are much easier than execution. If just merely conceiving of something could bring it into being, I’d have a stack of best-sellers under my belt to go along with several successful companies and a coffee shop that looked like a science lab where caffeine was dispensed in scientifically-measured doses.
“Genius,” said Thomas Edison, “is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration;” if only the numbers were reversed, I could be a genius.
If you’ve got an active mind, it’s hard to carry out your ideas. It’s not that I get bored exactly; it’s more that once I’ve thought of something, the really interesting part is over. “I always wanted to be a writer, but I couldn’t stand the paperwork,” is how Lily Tomlin put it.
To paraphrase Stephen King: just because something is hard is a terrible reason not to do it. He’s surely right, but then again, terrible reasons are, in practice, just as compelling as good reasons. Just because a reason is lousy doesn’t mean it doesn’t motivate; just look at all the things we’ve done in the name of pride, or fear, or boredom.
If I had three wishes, I’d naturally wish for more wishes. Duh.
But after that, I’d wish that by writing down an idea for a book would bring it into being. Like this: here’s a book about how a gang of teenagers saves the world from invaders from another dimension by taking psychedelic drugs secretly given to them by their physician fathers during the 1970s that ultimately derails the lives of each of the young people and breaks the hearts of the parents who had no other choice if the human race was to survive.
The story runs to 600 pages and intertwines the lives of dozens; it practically writes itself. Unfortunately, only practically.
Ideas are much easier than execution. If just merely conceiving of something could bring it into being, I’d have a stack of best-sellers under my belt to go along with several successful companies and a coffee shop that looked like a science lab where caffeine was dispensed in scientifically-measured doses.
“Genius,” said Thomas Edison, “is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration;” if only the numbers were reversed, I could be a genius.
If you’ve got an active mind, it’s hard to carry out your ideas. It’s not that I get bored exactly; it’s more that once I’ve thought of something, the really interesting part is over. “I always wanted to be a writer, but I couldn’t stand the paperwork,” is how Lily Tomlin put it.
To paraphrase Stephen King: just because something is hard is a terrible reason not to do it. He’s surely right, but then again, terrible reasons are, in practice, just as compelling as good reasons. Just because a reason is lousy doesn’t mean it doesn’t motivate; just look at all the things we’ve done in the name of pride, or fear, or boredom.
If I had three wishes, I’d naturally wish for more wishes. Duh.
But after that, I’d wish that by writing down an idea for a book would bring it into being. Like this: here’s a book about how a gang of teenagers saves the world from invaders from another dimension by taking psychedelic drugs secretly given to them by their physician fathers during the 1970s that ultimately derails the lives of each of the young people and breaks the hearts of the parents who had no other choice if the human race was to survive.
The story runs to 600 pages and intertwines the lives of dozens; it practically writes itself. Unfortunately, only practically.
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