Friends Help Bring Wild Ideas to Life
The Solitude of Our Imaginations
We dream big, wild, wonderful ideas in the solitude of our own imaginations. (Most of the time, at least.) It’s a pretty glorious thing to ride what philosopher Gaston Bachelard calls ‘the voyage into the land of the infinite.’ The seas can be as wide and deep as we wish, and the voyage as truly infinite as we’ll allow ourselves, with no one injecting deadly practicality into the mix. Infinity can be so intoxicating, such a marvelous ride.
But there’s a point in that voyage (the vanishing point, maybe?) where if we simply continue onwards, we can inifinity ourselves right past an idea. We can either get it so expansive that we can’t really even see it any more, or tire ourselves on the voyage and manage to convince ourselves as we come up for air that it was just a flight of fancy, not worthy of actually trying to embody. And that is anything but intoxicating. I find it can leave me with something of an imaginal hangover, feeling enervated rather than energized. That’s a first point of fear, that can shut us down.
How Friends Help Bring Wild Ideas to Life
That’s a first moment that friends become really important. The right friends help bring wild ideas to life. Having a playmate who’s willing to don the tin foil hat with you and try on the idea is invaluable. The tin foil hat is important, so they can abandon the need to be a responsible voice pointing out all of the ways what you’re dreaming is impossible. They can ground you, giving you a chance to give voice to the visions swirling in your head, without running you aground.
Along the way, friends (and colleagues, co-conspirators, advisors, and playmates of various shapes) can play a whole array of important roles……inspiration, resources, advice, the occasional ‘you rock’ and periodic kick in the pants…
But that first time you have the courage to give life to your wild idea by saying it aloud is a big deal. There’s a whole lot of thought about how powerful it is for humans to speak something into being – from religious traditions to neurological research. Say it to the wrong person, and they can deflate its magic almost instantly. Say it to the right one, and they can help you shape it into something that begins to have form.
Finding the Right Tin Foil Hat Playmate
So, for this moment, we need to look for people just as wildly crazy as we are. They may not get exactly what we’re dreaming up (because one of the most magical things about thinking something new is that it hasn’t ever happened exactly the way we’re dreaming it), but they’ll get the power of dreaming. New ideas are fragile.
It can be tough to find that right person. Sometimes it is someone right next to you – spouse or family member or close friend. And sometimes they’re exactly the wrong person, because they’ve got all sorts of feelings about you and what you are doing in the world, and (generally) really want you to succeed, but may have a different investment in what that success means.
Sometimes it might be a relative stranger. Or someone who has dreamt their own wildness into life. Or is wrestling with capturing their own idea enough to dance with it. Sometimes you need to bring the metaphorical box of tin foil with you and just set it lightly on the table to see if they’ll pick it up and start making their own hat. That’s a good sign!
Who Do You Know Who Will Make Their Own Hat?
Who in your life might do this? We all know people who live in the play of ideas. Grab them, feed them wine and maybe donuts (because, donuts), and ask them if they’ll be willing to hear the first stuttering iteration of an idea that you think you might love. And don’t be shy about telling them that you’re not sure, that you’re vulnerable about it, and that you’re not looking to have it either validated or critiqued so much as just heard, so you can start to understand if it actually might have form.
What’s most important is that it’s someone who loves the idea of impossible ideas. And who loves to play. Because in this moment, it isn’t about whether or not it’s real, or practical, or sensible, but instead, beautiful and delicious. And by listening and savoring it with you, help you start to figure out if it reverberates in you in ways that build, rather than diffuse. There will be plenty of moments to decide if it’s a good idea, one that you want to work on making tangible. But as you say it aloud for the first time, you should just be able to try it on and see how it feels. And then eat the donuts.
How have you found tin foil hat playmates? How have you found friends who can help bring wild ideas to life? Would love to hear your thoughts! (And there might well be some good playmates there commenting…)
This really spoke to me, and was exactly what I needed to hear this morning. You see, I know all about wild ideas! This passion for creation is what drove me to buy a beat up 1972 food truck after I couldn’t find a job as a teacher. I painted flowers on her, came up with a menu drawing on the spirits of my ancestors, and away we went!! Little did I know what adventuress we’d go on. How she’d save me when I lost everything. How she’d help heal my broken heart and give me purpose and sustain me.
Now, after another terrible loss-the loss of a child-my love and I have found refuge in a magical place, 38 acres of forest and streams. A land full of fairies and spirits, and we are searching for creative ways to live. We wish to celebrate love and life and healing on our land…My food truck brought me to Spillian’s, and it is serving as an inspiration to me, so thank you! We are seeking advice and guidance for our fragile “baby” and have gotten both gentle, encouraging advice and damaging criticism. It is amazing how judgmental blocked creatives can be! These writings have helped me along this process, and I look forward to reading them and hopefully visiting your place again soon!
Heather, thank you! I’m so terribly sorry to hear about your shattering loss. So sorry. Hard to imagine how tough that is. Wishing you all the very best with your place of magic, and would love to be supportive however I can be. I have no doubt you will make it something wonderful, as you do know and understand wild ideas!
As usual, I found this very thought provoking, so thanks, Leigh, as always, for lighting that fire. I have found that the older I have gotten, the harder it is for me to dust off my tin foil hat. I love to play, and I certainly love donuts, but for reasons I still don’t understand — it could be based on where I live, the kind of work that I do, the community with whom I interact regularly, the process of living and aging, or the sheer amount of effort it requires to rev up my engines — but I have moved from being in “Tin Foil Hat” mode 90% of the time to about 5% of the time. For a short time, I took improv classes which really made me push my boundaries. One improv mantra I learned, “No one dies alone” means that if an improvisational effort is falling flat, other “partners in crime” have an obligation to jump in and help it gain its legs. Initially, improv unlocked my emotions, and eventually, a sense of empowerment that led me to embrace some pretty audacious career experiences, in which I found I had the confidence and ability to fit in with some pretty fast company. I learned through my travels that if I opened myself up and allowed good things to happen, they often did. True, sometimes, there were hard lessons to learn, but generally, I have benefited from this approach. As my life’s trajectory lowered and I became more settled into a more stable family and professional life, I found things had changed for me. Mark Twain explained it better than I ever could in his impactful, sobering essay about how his training as a riverboat captain caused him to see the world differently (https://www.thoughtco.com/two-ways-of-seeing-a-river-by-mark-twain-1688773). In short, what used to be pretty ripples that might have inspired creative thinking were now perceived as signs of lurking danger; I have lost something in this transition. For me, it takes a set of blinders to block the pressures and circumstances of the outside world to focus on tin foil hattery, in the face of a current world that doesn’t necessarily value or reward silliness or wild ideas. I still appreciate the rewards a toasted coconut donut has to offer, to be sure, but the bigger and better draw is the gentle prod from a friend who reaches out and reminds me of the value of play, and of finding the right people with whom to play.
Oh, Marc, you brought tears to my eyes. This world can be so hard on our playful selves…and you, with the memories of that magically ridiculous trip on the blue highways of the Southwest, hold a particular place as a tin foil hat partner. So glad to know that maybe this reminder helped a little as you look for more playtime.