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The Power of Ideas
Once I realized that “deepak chopra” was a fictional character, I stopped taking him seriously.
— Deepak Chopra
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One of the great difficulties in our American life is that we don’t have places for entertaining ideas. And that is precisely what we’re supposed to do with an idea: entertain it. This means having respect for ideas themselves: letting them come and go without demanding too much from them at first, like their origins (who said that first), their popularity (what if everybody thought that), their logic (but that doesn’t fit with what you just said). Why can’t they be a little crazy?…
What we usually do with an idea is put it into practice. Someone says: “oh, that’s a good idea!” and he means: “Oh boy, I can save four bucks this way!” Or “Smart. I can do something now that I couldn’t have done before because I had a bright idea. I can hang the strap like this instead of like that.” That’s what makes a “good idea” in our society. A good idea means useful, practical, immediately applicable. Isn’t it a shame that we can value ideas only when they have themselves in a harness. I think it breaks their spirit. We don’t let them run loose, to see where they might take us if we just fed them with a little attention and trusted their autonomy.”
— James Hillman
