Gerhard Richter Quote on Ideas and How They Won’t Come to You—You Have To Find Them

“It is a danger to wait around for an idea to occur to you.  You have to find the idea.”

Gerhard Richter, via Daily Rituals

Beyond the Quote (Day 413)

Ideas are the treasure of your mind. They represent pockets of overlapping information that have the potential to yield a valuable return. And like treasure, they’re revealed only through motion, activity, disruption—never the opposite. Treasure is buried. It’s hidden away. It’s off the beaten path. It doesn’t just lay itself on the front door of your mind. It’s only discovered in the depths of your consciousness. It doesn’t come to you; you go to it.

Of course, not all ideas are created equal. You might counter back and say that you have ideas all of the time. To which I would reply, is finding a $5 bill on the sidewalk treasure? I wouldn’t say it’s not treasure. It’s value added that you didn’t have before. But, it also isn’t a treasure that will yield a life-changing return. As is the case with top-of-the-mind, shallow ideas. Shallow ideas yield shallow results. If you want to tap into the richness of your mind, you have to be willing to explore deep.

This is why we have some of our best ideas when we’re in the shower or on a long drive or hike. Those moments when we’re free from distractions are periods of time when we get to actually dig around and search through the piles of information hoarded in our brains. The rest of the time we’re either expanding our maps or adding to the piles of junk. I think we all know what activities add to the junk. But, just like expanding a map would yield more territory that we can include in a search, “mind treasure” opportunities increase as our understanding of the world expands. And increasing our understanding of the world is always a good idea.

Time for the crazy part. What’s the first thing you would do if you found treasure? You would act on it, right? You would collect it, cash it in, get it appraised, etc. Well, here’s what most people do with their mind treasure: Nothing. They leave it. They go through all of that trouble to find it—and they never do anything with it. Some people don’t even acknowledge it! They just carry on. How to know if a treasure is worth anything unless it‘s acted upon? Shouldn’t all of it, at the very least, get collected and/or stored? Why just leave it behind on your journey? It makes no sense!

Of course, not all ideas acted upon will yield a valuable return, just like not all treasure found will turn out to be of value. While this is true, it’s also equally true that all ideas unacted upon will yield a zero return, just like all treasure left behind will amount to zero value. The danger in not collecting your treasure or in waiting around for the treasure to come to you, is that in either case you’ll be left without your treasure! You’ll never get to capitalize on or get to share what’s uniquely buried inside of you. And all of that inner treasure will remain forever lost in the seas of your soul.

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