Whatever sticks

It is interesting what ideas, images, and experiences resonate deeply with people. There is no telling what kind of memories can be triggered by a word or idea in one person versus another. But, I think that on the opposite extreme, we do have artificially constructed experiences that are similarly experienced across all people (e.g., good fiction, movies, or VR video games).

But, I tend to skew more towards believing that people all experience things idiosyncratically. The implication is that many of my ideas and convictions are not captivating for one subset of the population, but is for another. So, where am I going with this?

My life goal is to challenge people to think about themselves, other people, and the world more deeply. I realize that some ideas that resonate with me will not resonate with some people but will with others. I also have this tendency to be paralyzed with fear, thinking my ideas are crude and lacking and should therefore be hidden until it has been vetted from every angle before sharing my findings with the rest of the world.

But, the problem with sanitizing and ingratiating myself to everyone is that I fail to say anything with any sort of potency. I might as well say nothing than to say something that is so bland that it cateries to everyone. I look at all the memoirs and biographies of the greatest people who have lived, and I realized that all across the board, the most memorable and impactful people were the ones who had the courage to let their ideas be known, to be put under scrutiny without, to forsaken the natural tendency to dwell on all the things that could go wrong.

The key point is that memorable people think of something great and put their ideas and work out in the open without thinking too much about whether people will like it. Then, they move on and find more things that are important to them and report it to the world. They rinse and repeat. Many times, they even contradict what they had once said –most famous people do. But, I actually think this is a good thing. It means that they have created such an overabundance of material that they have people from so many different walks of life who have been touched by at least one thing that the person had said in the past.

So, mark my words, I will put myself and my work out there. I will be earnest and hardworking in all that I do, but when it comes time to submit my ideas to the world, I will not hesitate. My life is too short to live with fear of what people think about me. I would be remiss to live a life locked up in my mind. I will challenge myself and try my best to the things that I think are most important to me at my current station in life. I will have a dogged attitude and believe long after all have given up and forgotten. I will put my work out there even if I am reservations, so long as it came from a desire to do good in the world. So long as my convictions are aligned with the idea that I am trying to convey. So long as I can stand before my creator and say that I did my best with this life, that I am ready for the day of judgment if the world ended this very moment.