Giving Your Ideas Enough Time to Form

Ideas, ideas, ideas…

They create, shape, shift and destroy the world. Where do they even come from?

I have heard ideas described in many different ways; seeds to be planted, as a birthing process, floating and drifting in the air looking for that special someone to collaborate with, descending down down down until the idea enters your body, and downloads. There’s so many ways to experience coming up with an idea.

Ideas are like plants, human beings and other animals in that they also have life cycles, they also go through periods of development. To me, ideas are magical, mysterious, even otherworldly. Where do they even come from?

This post is about ideas, but it is also about time. Throughout my adult years I have noticed that the longer I spend listening to an idea, brainstorming and fleshing it out, the more it has a chance to fully develop.

I noticed last year that I was cutting off the formation of an idea because I, out of excitement, curiosity, impatience or deadlines wanted to quickly get it out into the world. It’s important to note that I am not talking about withholding your idea because you are constantly checking to make sure everything is perfect. I’m talking about getting to know your idea, listening to it not once, but several times, over the course of a week, a month, a couple of months, a year. I bet your idea will let you know how much time it needs! I’m practicing spending time with my ideas, which for the most part is exercising my listening skills. Over time the idea becomes nourished by my listening and in turn we grow together, go through the ebb and flow of unfolding together.

Are you giving your ideas enough time to form? This may not work for everybody and that is okay, because there is no cookie cutter formula or process for creative living. I am just the stranger on the internet asking if what you are working on now needs more time?

I also think it is important to write that not every idea or project needs a ton of time before spreading its wings to fly. The point I want to make is being present (having full attention and authentic desire to spend time with what you are working on) with your idea can make a significant difference in how it forms, your relationship with it over the short or long-term, and how it lives in your community and wider world. I’ll be using “it” to reference an idea, but I believe wholeheartedly that they are alive and conscious, and a long way from being inanimate objects.

I’m in the process now of listening to a project I have been working on for a year and a half (learn more on my IG @cosmostokitchen). Sometimes I get creative insight by randomly getting ideas. I believe this is called intuition. Then there are times when I intentionally seek out inspiration to get ideas or flesh something out that I am already working on. A lot of times I ask questions to generate ideas or expand on an idea, something I would say is also intentional. The common denominators in all this is attention, presence and time. I have had to learn the hard way that spending time with my ideas matters, and that being intentional and manifesting slowly can be really helpful in creating what I want to create (even if along the way the idea morphs into something else). There are three signs that show up in my life when I know a project needs another listening or visioning session:

For me, I notice that there is a correlation with lack of interest and motivation when I have not carved out some kind of direction for my project. When I took time with @cosmostokitchen to get clear on what topics I was REALLY interested in, the mediums I wanted to document the project through, and when I would spend time with it, I felt my creative channel burst open, and water rush through, excited, free, strong and curious. My direction for this project has changed a few times, but getting clear on what I want to explore and make, and especially being excited about it all, has helped me carve a path to move forward.

2. Ideas that randomly pop up in my head as if to ask “hey, do you have time to talk more?”

I’ll quickly jot down the thought or idea and rush past the greeting or nudge. They will come back in one way or another, “hey, do you have time to think more about this? Do you have time to move, talk through or visualize this more? “Hey! Do…Hey! Do you…Hey!”

Quick Tip : Carry around a small notebook and pen with you to catch any spontaneous thoughts, ideas and inspiration. Maybe this notebook is a notebook. Maybe it could be something else.

3) Weak or No Consistency

I will have fleshed out ideas that I connect with so well, and I will spend time with them, but here and there. There’s no consistency. Momentum can’t take place. Once I receive a new idea, it naturally begins to grow into its wholeness, it’s radiance, but it experiences fragmentation when I work on it here and there. It thus exists and remains in some fragmented here and there atmosphere, when the environment/food it needs to keep on growing and living is consistency. Could we also use the words commitment, dedication, devotion, discipline, love? I have to figure out how I work best. How long am I able to focus and give of myself? What has to happen to get this part of my project done, and am I willing and able to do it?

Last year I traveled to rural Maine to visit a seaweed harvester. One day I saw a pile of cut tree logs stacked in the back of the couple’s home and observed their rings. I looked closely, they reminded me of clocks…tree clocks. Then I suddenly thought, “trees have their own time zone!”.

The more I thought about time after that, the more I remembered that there are different time cultures spread out across the six kingdoms of life.

I have always heard and believed that time is a social construct. However lately I’ve been studying astronomy and it seems that time is actually real with the Earth’s orbit influencing night and day, seasons, and the moon’s impact on ocean tides. Cyclical time. There is still a lot for me to unpack regarding time as being real or not, but what I am certain of is that time pushes life forward and there is no way to go back into the past (yet).

There is no one time zone. There is Pacific Standard Time, Mountain Time, Eastern Standard Time. There are apparently more than twenty-four time zones on Earth. We also know that there are different ways of living connected to time. I’m no time expert, but in my experience it seems that one of the main objectives of human organized time is to provide structure to societies and common understandings around time that are tied into social/cultural norms. That is great. It seems to be working. In addition to social and cultural agreements about human organized time, I also notice that there is no actual golden rule book that says we have to do xy and z (is there?). Or maybe the rules are the structures. Who are the time rule and culture makers, enforcers, disruptors?

Mother Nature keeps time in their own way. Seeds, the moon via the sun, trees, menstruating bodies and others keep or embody time similarly to and differently than cultures within humanity. Many of Mother Nature’s ways of being around time has been controlled and manipulated to fit a dominate time culture that mostly caters toward fast production businesses. And our bodies and lives as human beings are molded to fit inside our own time cultures and/or a dominate time culture that we may not agree with (entirely). I am curious about living in polychronic society, to step out of my other perception that time is fixed and unchanging and life must be lived linearly.

This is all to say that…time is a big deal, and there is a direct relationship between our spirits minds bodies, creativity and time, and the life cycles of ideas. All of this ties into social and environmental justice as well, and maybe I will write more about that in a separate post. I have struggled with how to understand time and its various intersections, especially around work, money, food/cooking, art, rest, travel and accomplishment. Like money, it’s a topic that deeply interests me.

What is your relationship with time? Is time on a spectrum? Is time malleable? Can we change the way time is humanly organized? Who would be/are the decision makers around this? Is it time to re-evaluate our relationship with time? What do you think about when you hear or read the word “time”? Who can we talk to and learn from? Is this all bullshit?

Twelve Suggestions to Change Y(our) Relationship with Time

11. Incorporate slow movement practices in your life like Qigong or Yoga

12. Move to a slower paced town or city

13. Observe Mother Nature’s time cultures

Gotta love tangents. Let’s get back to what I first started writing about, giving your ideas enough time to develop so they can express themselves as fully as they can. Beliefs, attitudes, emotions, energy, stories, action, all make up the world. They are making the world as we speak. Ideas join the mix in creating our personal and collective worlds. We are (co)creators and thoughts and ideas are powerful living ‘things’. Yes, this is so powerful, but I want to reach for the word Divine. This is all divine and sacred, and especially ordinary.

Ideas, ideas, ideas…

They create, shape, shift and destroy the world. Where do they even come from?

You can find Simone on Instagram @simone.j.johnson

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