Thursday, April 12, 2007

Just A Thought - First Step

What do I hope to offer you that you haven’t been exposed to at least half a dozen times a day for a long, long time? What great new finding or idea do I propose to bring to the table? Well to be honest, none. I don’t believe myself a great thinker like the Socrates and Newton’s of this world. Then again in all fairness to those who lived in their time, there may well have been those who thought up the same philosophies and scientific notions before them but just never thought of putting them down on paper. And maybe that’s where we all go wrong. To have great thoughts and not act on them. It’s kind of like telling God “Thanks but no thanks. I don’t really want to be walking from place to place since I have a car, so you just take these legs and give them to someone else.” The fallacy of it all. And yet how often do we do exactly that.

Well excuse me you non-religious types. My reference to God was not meant to make of this piece Christian writing so just wait a minute before you turn elsewhere saying that this doesn’t concern you. (That’s another thing we all tend to do. Cluster ourselves into groupings where we feel safe and look for faults in those who don’t conform. I think the manifestation of this trait is directly proportional to the strength of one’s beliefs).

But I digress. Eager to use myself as an example, I point out that it’s taken me more than 4 years to write this simple piece. I don’t know how long it will take me to seek to get it published (but that’s a story for another day). 4 years is a mighty long time. And they say that if you don’t use it you lose it. How many of my brain cells, initially geared towards writing, have since died and been used to produce hair (which has since fallen off due to the numerous procedures I’ve tried on my head). How much more captivating (the assumption here is that it’s captivating at all) would this article have been, if I had done it when I first got the thought?

I am also eager to share the blame here since I’m sure I’m not alone. How many of the projects you wished to undertake have since become white elephants with truck loads (OK. Let’s stick to big-bag-full) of money pumped in, followed by a loss of interest or lack of zeal to see it through. How many great ideas have you had but let pass away as they’d have entailed too much work? It does not matter that the work involved sourcing for funds and you sat back pitying yourself for being poor Think about it. As for me, I’ve taken my first step.