Measuring the value of an idea is like making a statement about the length of a piece of string. How long is a piece of string? It depends: they aren’t all the same. The same is true about ideas. Some are good, some are awful, and there’s a wide range of quality in between.

Some people think that ideas are a dime a dozen; in fact, I’ve had at least three new ideas in the three minutes that I’ve spent writing this post. I expect many more to follow. Most of those ideas will be next to worthless:

  • impractical
  • expensive
  • time-consuming
  • and of limited appeal to most normal people.

Perhaps I’ll have a really wonderful, brilliant, spectacular idea and heaven help me if I forget to write it down or else it’ll be lost in the ether, never to return.

Who know what brilliant concepts, works of art, etc. were lost due to forgetfulness? Author Garrison Keillor, in the introduction to Lake Wobegon Days, tells the tale of a magical, wonderful set of short stories that he wrote… and then forgot in a restroom while traveling. Apparently Lake Wobegon Days is not that batch of stories, but instead was the best he could come up with afterward. I don’t know that I believe this tale, but nonetheless it’s always interesting to think about what might have been or what might be.

If this blog post about the value of an idea seems a bit different from my normal blog posts, it’s because I’ve been listening to Stephen Fry’s Podgrams and I’m imagining that he’s dictating the blog post to me now. I can hear his voice sounding out each word as it appears on the computer screen. Well, not literally of course, but it is an exercise of imagination, after all, and thus I’m trying out an idea that I had and I’m just realizing that now.

This isn’t exactly a Flattery by Imitation post, but it’s not bad for a Friday, especially the one after the US Thanksgiving when a number of my readers may still be recovering from the lingering effects of Tryptophan induced coma.

Thank you for reading and I’ll lighten the load on your mind by ending this blog post with an idea (hah!) that I just had while finishing this blog post:

“I CAN HAZ TURKEE SAMMICH?”

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