Ideas are fascinators that sparkle and dangle in front of the creator, distracting an eager audience from the person behind the curtain. Submitting to the tyranny of ideas gives us the freedom to explore who we are apart from our public reputations. If ideas are living entities that exist separately from our selves, what remains of us?

Once ideas find an audience, they’re hard to eradicate. Many a surprised creator has found that they’ve lost control over an idea, watching helplessly as it’s shaped and reinterpreted in ways they didn’t intend.

The barrier to bring any idea to reality is to admit that the way that you do so might be inadequate. It is to acknowledge that you may not do that idea justice, but that you are going to create anyway. Because as soon as an idea is created, it is now something . Something that can be held, touched, read, looked at, questioned . And it’s far for mo... See more