Go figure. Ideas seem to expire. I’m thinking of ideas for writing: creative or otherwise. Although you could generalize to the broader spectrum.
Some ideas are best served hot. Some lend to refrigeration or even the freezer. Bear in mind the lengthy and far from certain thawing procedure.
What were they thinking today at that awfully peculiar beach tavern? A beach not of sand, but rock? That coconut composed of not coconut fluid but coconut ice cubes in no rush to require their original form? Even Brazilian thermodynamics adapt a slower pace. An awkward plaint soon produced a replacement product. Yet how unsportsmanlike!
Long stored ideas could demand reheating and further seasoning to really impart. Some, once stale, don’t serve but for compostage.
The more organic the idea, the more sensitive to decomposition. Hence rarely address I the hot subjects: politics, sports, current events. Too precarious of a life cycle.
Ninety five percent indifferent to the hubbub anyway: likely closer to ninety nine, a few percentage points in service for moral misalignment.
More interested in what delivers not only today, but five-ten years since, or even hundreds, come fundamental philosophical and moral precept. The older, the ancient, all the more enticing: literature, music and the arts the obvious cases; hardly the politics, if not for the historical byproduct. Though better wait several centuries for matters to separate from the much confabulating noise.
Many of my long accumulated drafts for diverse writing topics don’t live to see the light of day, forever confined to the caterpillar. Some break shell months after inception. Some die in the early development process. Some fail to gain the same traction as a fresh specimen.
Interest wanes for some of the longer archived ideas. You’ve certainly heard of no few a musical act to become disenchanted with the earlier style of composition. Especially characteristic of the chameleons, ie Miles Davis, David Bowie, Radiohead, Stravinsky. Or the painters … Picasso for sure, but too many to survey.
But how does one establish idea validity? Be it a hard expiration? What rate of decay are we to expect? What life expectancy before warranting decommission?
I can’t answer all your questions. Don’t pester. (Speaking to my soul.)
Yet some individual heuristics avail:
Though obsessed over Yerba Mate to the point of recently writing a few quatrains of verse, the craze feels much too organic to last a decade. Musical subjects, though to a lesser extent, still taste a bit earthy. Obsession with literature, now, is here to stay.
Among the categories I typically address, travels are best served hot. Yet I’ve a tendency to forego reportage to an unduly point months after, then tasting like refried stew.
At this instant I’m once again in Salvador, Bahia. But I’ve yet to reflect on the Portugal movements from back in May, though now on an entirely different wavelength: less taken by surroundings; less exploration oriented; more vested in writing, and not travel writing. So much for those ideas.
To think of it, N. N. Taleb derives a handy metric for lifetime estimation of non-organic matter: the Lindy Effect. In this case, organic applies more strictly to biological phenomena. Everything else: ideas, masonry, technology, trends, art popularity, etc, that is, the non-organics, yield to the following:
With ninety-five percent (or similarly high) probability, the non-naturally decaying entity, provided it indeed lives and thrives, will continue on for as many more years. That is, it finds itself, probabilistically, at no greater than half-life.
Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita … Something of that sort …
For instance, anything of five years back that still captures your interest, is likely to do the same five years hence. But nothing of five minutes back lends to any useful prognostication beyond dinner time.
Hence sages counsel against rash decisions. But I tend to face the opposite risk: of neglect, if not plain idea sabotage.
Questions, comments? Connect.