Ideas and Where They Come From

Ideas all come from some place. They are effects of events that have happened in our lives. That is one of the fundamental principles that I'm trying to explain.

Thich Nhat Hahn writes in "Being Peace" about how things are made up of non-things, that is to say that each tree is made up of bark, sap and leaves (superficially, not even beginning to dive into the molecular complications of something like that).

Ideas come from things that are not, at least initially, even parts of the idea (just like the way trees draw in carbon from the air). These things start as experiences that are eventually expressed through "I," the individual.

When you think something, or say something or write something down, you might not always think about where the ideas come from. I definitely don't think actively about everything that leads me to come to conclusions. That's difficult and takes alot of time, and by the time I've done it, I might have forgotten what I was going to say or write in the first place. I just want to recognize that things come from places besides me first, that I am not really creating anything, just changing it and linking it together, synthesizing it, in a sense.

Think about it like this: How do you get 7?

3 + 4 = 7

7 is made up of 3 and 4, which, as Thich Nhat Hahn said, are non-7 elements, but these things start to get really complicated when you think that 7 isn't just limited to 3 and 4.

2 + 5 = 7

1 + 6 = 7

Okay, but what about when we don't just think about it in terms of synthesizing 2 experiences?

1 + 2 + 3 +1 = 7

2 + 2 + 2 + 1 = 7

3 + 3 + 1 = 7

What if we don't just limit ourselves by thinking about it in terms of addition?

2 x 3 + 1 = 7

4 x 2 - 1 = 7

49 / 7 = 7

24 / 6 + 3 = 7

There are an infinite number of ways to get to 7, because there are an infinite number of places to start and there are a great deal of operations that we can use to change those numbers to get them to 7.

Like I said, it's pretty easy for me to forget what an idea was once I start considering where it came from.

What if, though, we think of ourselves like an idea?

I have said before that we are evolving beings, constantly changing as a result of our moment to moment experiments. What I mean is that where we started is undefinable now (because that first figure existed long before we were born), and operations continue to change it, so, like an idea, we are pushed through a series of operations to change who we are.

7 is a relatively simple idea, but as an individual it seems ridiculous to use something as simple as 7 as a metaphor for who we are, right?

Even a 5 or 6 digit number like 90,790 (my birthday, just as an example) seems like an indequate example. It seems like it would have to be something like pi to 50 places. That's fine, we are complex organisms and to use a base 10 system to explain our existence is probably inadequate anyway.

That seemed like a tangent to me, but I hope it was helpful anyway. I just wanted to offer you chance to see how our ideas (as simple as 7 and as complicated as an emotion like anger or disdain or pleasure) come from our experiences, but I think it's important that we come from those experiences too, that we are a product of things that happen to us and our experiences are an expression of that.

Hope that was helpful for getting a little handle on the idea I've been throwing around (for lack of a more wild verb) in the last few posts).