It's a little tricky to explain exactly what I'm looking for here -- what I think would make this an interesting thread.
I'm not looking for ideas that are either big or are creative. Rather, I'm looking for ideas that meet both of those terms at once -- with it being ultimately up to you how you define those terms.
Second, just to get you maybe started on thinking of how you might want to define those terms, consider these suggestions. "Big" might be defined by you in the sense of "influential" -- specifically, and idea that would have had a big impact on things (even just your little corner of the world) even if it didn't actually have such an impact.
"Creative". My only suggestion here is that you might want to avoid defining "creative" as the same as "original". I don't believe, "There is nothing new under the sun", to be strictly true, but I think it sure does come close enough to being strictly true. You could spend hours, if you were serious, just pondering precisely how original your ideas actually were.
By the way, I've learned that, over the past three or four decades, scientists have discovered the brain's wiring for creativity is largely different from the brain's wiring for intelligence. They think that might explain why a person can be somewhat dim but very creative, or very uncreative but exceptionally smart.
A couple decades ago, when I could still recall all of these things, I made a serious, fair-minded effort to figure out and count the number of big and creative ideas I'd had in my life up to that point. I recall the total was just twelve, and that I had discovered in each and every case that someone had had that idea before me -- only I didn't know that when I first came up with those ideas. They were mostly ideas in every sense of the word -- intellectual ideas that would have been worth publishing if only they were not already known to most folks in those fields, except me.
I'm not looking for ideas that are either big or are creative. Rather, I'm looking for ideas that meet both of those terms at once -- with it being ultimately up to you how you define those terms.
Second, just to get you maybe started on thinking of how you might want to define those terms, consider these suggestions. "Big" might be defined by you in the sense of "influential" -- specifically, and idea that would have had a big impact on things (even just your little corner of the world) even if it didn't actually have such an impact.
"Creative". My only suggestion here is that you might want to avoid defining "creative" as the same as "original". I don't believe, "There is nothing new under the sun", to be strictly true, but I think it sure does come close enough to being strictly true. You could spend hours, if you were serious, just pondering precisely how original your ideas actually were.
By the way, I've learned that, over the past three or four decades, scientists have discovered the brain's wiring for creativity is largely different from the brain's wiring for intelligence. They think that might explain why a person can be somewhat dim but very creative, or very uncreative but exceptionally smart.
A couple decades ago, when I could still recall all of these things, I made a serious, fair-minded effort to figure out and count the number of big and creative ideas I'd had in my life up to that point. I recall the total was just twelve, and that I had discovered in each and every case that someone had had that idea before me -- only I didn't know that when I first came up with those ideas. They were mostly ideas in every sense of the word -- intellectual ideas that would have been worth publishing if only they were not already known to most folks in those fields, except me.
