A bad idea usually peters out, but a good idea grows on me like a pet dog. I have to take it to lunch, to a library, to a café, but I’ll never take it to a cinema.
Sometimes it grows on me so much that my life begins to revolve around it. Everything: eating, hanging out, partying, etc. They’re just things I have to get done before I can turn the idea into a video, a blog post, or a snarky auto-reply to e-mails in my spam folder.
But I have to stop myself from executing the idea straight away because just like a pet dog, I need to walk it before it’s halfway tolerable. I need to let a good idea sit for a while before it balloons into something with substance.
This usually looks like:
1: Sitting at a café for an hour before the waiters chase me away
2: Reading the first paragraphs of 10+ books at a bookstore
3: Accidently bumping into someone I know in the streets and end up buying them a coffee
4: Playing the first 4 seconds of Helikopter, Helikopter on repeat in my apartment
Eventually, I’ll feel bloated. I can no longer carry the idea around because it’s too heavy. At that point, I have to let it go and put it out into the world.
But I’ll never let a pet dog go in the same way.