I in the context of
philosophy would describe imagination as aesthetically (philosophy of beauty
& taste) your fantasy of the way ideal situation should feel, look and
taste. I would define it as your means of conceptualizing the ideal reality in
its metaphysical state – I call it the imaginative conceptualization of the
metaphysical ideal reality- plato refers to it as the world of forms
This is the bedrock of ideas hence my topic reads: HOW TO
GENERATE AND DEVELOP IDEAS FOR PROGRESS
*The manifestation of reality is an idea business of the
mind which requires one to mind his business*
Ideas are raw state of reality solution elements/materials
in the mind formed out of creative and imaginative conceptual exercise of a man
to be an answer or solution for the satisfaction of a need or a problem that
will turn present undesired state of reality into the ideal state
Everything we see in physical reality has its root in ideas
hence metaphysically, the foundations of reality, the really real as plato
rightly said is the idea. Science art etc even God knows that before he created
the earth it has existed first as an idea in the transcendent world of forms in
his mind before he spoke them into reality. The reality we desire yet to be
experienced are all locked up in the idea in the world of forms, we just need
to stretch the mind via imagination in order to reach and get them
There is a fallacy and phobia that every idea that needs to
be tapped has been exhausted – no new ideas people have all already gone in and
explored them all but I tell you that as long as life has not yet attained the
desired state/ perfect state there still lots of opportunities in problems to
generate ideas from and you know what? there can never be on earth a perfect
state at least not until after the second coming of jesus Christ. That is why
in SOLUTION VIRTUES we say *towards attaining life’s ideal state*
What does it mean to generate ideas? Free flow from thoughts
and imaginations of blue print; first hand raw material for the creation of
solution to problems of society
The problems with generating ideas which I will deal with
below will help you know how to generate ideas
*MOTIVATION*: To be able to generate great ideas your
primary motivation should be a burden a concern passion to see a more desirable
state of life for people & system as a result of your input. Some people
just go into business or a career without a strong purpose or motivating factor
and they find it difficult to thrive in that career or business among
competitors. So many people are myopically selfish where in actual you ought to
be rationally selfish (the ideal virtue) – you are less concerned about the
problem of the society or system you currently live and operate in. you are
only concerned about the needs of yourself and your family and you think you
are deceiving who? negligence, its not my fault, is it me that cause the
problem of Nigeria? its government - no body to bail the cat; that attitude of
irresponsibility is a major hindrance to generating ideas and the extent to
which you are concerned burden about the problems of human happiness is the
extent to which your ideas can be a universal solution and you know what? You
gain universal acceptance, recognition and celebration. Be concerned about the
complains, hurts and problems of people - not being sympathetic but empathic
and compassionate: The true actual measure of your worth or relevance is the
extent and depth to which your ideas and abilities solve the problem of people &
the system
EMPATHY: IT is very easy to generate ideas which
is a concept to solve the problem when we put ourselves in the shoes of those
suffering because of that problem/need. We are emotional beings when you are
empathic when you are compassionate, its easy to generate ideas because you
want to help because you want to solve the problems those people are facing
Tell your neighbor: the problem of nigeria is your business,
the problem of the world is your business because you are a part of the system
if you have nothing to contribute towards the perfect functionality of this
system you wouldn’t have been integrated into it
Some people put money as the primary motivator whereas the
function and rightful place of money is a tool or vehicle to aid you to solve
the problem of the system
The competitors or other people in the industry or area you
want to find solution to are not the reason for going there, Some people are focused on building the best mouse traps instead of
trying to solve completely the problem of mice - a fallacious marketing
philosophy in the product driven era - your primary aim or motivating
factor is to see a desirable change because of your input. Your primary motive
or motivation is a sure determinant on the greatness of ideas your mind can
conceive
The most successful,thriving and enduring ideas
doesn’t come as a reaction to competition but as a result of sincere care and
concern towards completely solving and satisfying the needs of the people &
system
*EXPOSURE*: The purpose of this is to give your mind a
sample of something to work with by providing you information clue or picture
of the present state of reality, the needs & problems of the people and
system and what various people have done and are doing to provide solutions
hence ideas come up from the lapses of the current people in that area in
solving the problem and the needs of people and the system
Secondly, your imaginations and thoughts are as
good as what your senses have been exposed to – you don’t understand!! You
cannot think or imagine car if all your life everything you have been exposed
to trekking as means of transport – the idea of aeroplane came from the
birds/hawks flying. their minds have been exposed to something that gave a
standing for them to invent that. Exposure is a goodway to dealing with the
mouse trap fallacy. The mouse trap fallacy is an idiom that center’s most on competition
trying to improve products and services better than competitors instead of
focusing on the problem and trying to develop fresh ideas for completely solve
it
Gain exposure by studying history and evolution current
trends and speculations of things via books (fiction and non fiction),
movies(fiction and non fiction) one Disney animation I love so much and has
help me catch one great idea is *meet the robinsons*, travel and tour to
explore cultures and peoples life styles, events, interactions and associations,
surf the internet for the primary aim of
getting your mind view broadened via exposure to all these
Hence your aim for being exposed will determine the kind of
books you read, the events you attend, associations and people you interact
with, places you visit for tourism and exploration of culture and peoples lifes
style, what you browse about on the internet
I presently have idea of (10 novels) to write because of the
movies, books, events etc I have been exposing my mind to
*INTEREST AND PASSION*: independent of the worlds problem no
matter how insignificant it might look, focusing on your passion and interest
is a sure means of generating ideas – just doing it for fun from there as you
gain mastery and being exposed, you will suddenly start conceiving thoughts
like; “see this thing can turn to something else if i………” ideas start coming. When
you engage more on areas of passion you become so charged and filled that you
want to find a place to discharge, to offload your talents and skill, ideas
easily generated when you whatever drives you whatever you enjoy whatever or
where ever you fine joy and ease expressing yourself is easy to generate ideas
example I enjoy talking and expressing my opinion when it comes to how things
ought to be in any area eg how house or government or education or family etc
ought to be so ideas started coming on how to create something out of it and
its one of the reasons I started thrivehood because it help me to express and
present my idea of the ideal society how things should and can be.
*Understand yourself, FOCUS ON YOUR UNIQUENESS & source of inspiration*:
Emotional intelligence is a very important virtue to inculcate, to enable you
appropriately interpret your feelings and identify the source. When you have
mastered yourself, you know what your feelings are telling you about things you
need to perform well – for me sadly though my peak hours for generating ideas
are between 6 am – 9 am daily of staying alone but the kind of job I do and
where I live I a major set back that is y I maximize my weekends very well on
for these purpose during the peak hours – in essence find time to be alone to
meditate and fantasize about the way based on your own metaphysical conception
how you think a particular or general area of life should look like and pen
them down based on your previously identified source of inspiration which your
feelings help you identify (place, time, book, music, movie etc) which you have
selected and coordinated and maximized – ideas must flow
Your source of inspiration is determined by your
unique nature – what inspires me may not inspire you
Generating ideas to me most times is not the
major issue it is the idea development is where serious work is. Development
of ideas can be likened to the concept of utility as economics made us
understand. Utility is the level of satisfaction derived from the consumption
of a commodity. However one of the greatest factors that affect the utility
derived from a particular good or commodity is the *FORM* the product is in.
for you to be able to get people to derive maximum utility and be willing to
pay (reward you) for it, it has to be processed to be transformed from the raw
state it is to the state that is tangible enough for the market, audience or
people to actually derive utility or value- I mean primary goods. In economics
primary goods are those that are required for further processing. example if I
want a dress you cannot give me the cotton seed or plant - you plant it and
make it come to a form that the textile industry can now work on it to produce
materials from(which is not yet the cloth) hence we talk about developing the
ideas. In idea development we are talking about the activities and process
involved in transforming the raw state of ideas to the primary goods
state(which still needs further processing but here can be easily communicated
to the team) - from data state to information state. Trust me this is where you
give volume of thoughts. You need to develop your ideas so you can get
and communicate it to the right people to partner with to help make it a
reality
HOW TO DEVELOP YOUR IDEAS
DISCIPLINE AND FOCUS: Especially for people who
find it easy to generate ideas trying to focus on one can pose serious stress
because they are constantly tempted to try this and that idea as the ideas come
into their minds but I like what our speaker said yesterday he said – you don’t
do many things at the same time to succeed but you do one thing many times.
it’s a choice listen to what AYN RAND: my sweet role model philosopher has to
say about focus “*when man unfocuses his mind, he may be said to be conscious
in a subhuman sense of the word, since he experiences sensations and
perceptions. But in the sense of the word applicable to man - in the sense of a
consciousness able to direct the actions and provide for the survival of a
human being – an unfocused mind is not conscious. Psychologically, the choice
to think or not, is the choice to focus or not. Existentially, the choice to
focus or not, is the choice to be conscious or not. Metaphysically, the choice
to focus or not, is the choice of life or death*” talks about the level of
attention and energy it requires. With the help of your plan based on the
coordination of when where what you get your source of inspiration from make
sure to channel the energy of the inspiration to that particular idea. Ask
yourself HOW CAN I GO ABOUT THIS? seven times on that particular idea and as
your mind begins to wonder in search of answers pen them down
ATTENTIVENESS:
from your exposure you will realize that there are some things already
existing in reality that can help put more details to the idea; materials
around you that can help add flesh to the framework of your ideas for effective
communication be sure to listen to what your feelings tell you as you are
focused on developing that singular idea. Imagine the right brothers that has
an idea to build an airplane, remember there was nothing like that to be able to
communicate to the team and have them share in the vision, he need to relate it
to something they have seen if not only you and your idea will be there – he
says the airplane will have shape like a hawk and be able to fly like that.
With that it is a step on idea development so that the people to help with the
project have clarity on what exactly we want to achieve. I sometime ago like a
month now, Thrivehood is an idea further developed from a previous idea
about a one-stop educational resource hub. I couldn’t really explain it the way
it was in my head but I had something that existed in reality that could help
me communicate the idea which i had about the online one-stop educational hub - www.aynrand.org, www.artofmanliness.com were good examples with those he
had a clue about what I was talking about
VISION AND FEATURES: what is the vision behind the idea; what problems are you set out to solve with that idea - write it down. Who and who will benefit?, how can they benefit? What are the features of the product or service of your idea - try to use something in reality or drawing or illustration to explain or describe features. All these should be well drafted and documented. For example my novel - I have the vision, the plot, the settings, the themes, the narrative style etc these are the features of the idea of the novel I want to produce so that if I want to work with someone on the project there is clear direction specification and most likely it’s possible that we get the accurate picture of the idea out in reality the way it is in my mind. It will save time, proper channel of energy, zeal from your team or partner and most importantly the real thing in your head will come out the way it is because no road blocks in communication and interpretations from your partner or team. Try to use tools and templates that help you arrange and present your idea/solution such as pitch deck templates business model canvas, design thinking model etc
PROTECT YOUR IDEA: Try not to talk too much about it until you have completed the 3rd stage. Anybody you want to work on the idea with especially if it is a virgin idea you need to go and secure it with a lawyer (let them sign legal document of partnership or NDA)and make them stakeholders to feel they also have a share in the glory and to reduce possibility of being betrayed and gain devotion commitment and loyalty
There are still more to learn on this so I
implore you to do research because especially for people in intellectual
property field and scientific/technological invention it cannot all be
exhausted here in one lecture
Lemme close on this note
The degree or level of attention you draw to yourself is
proportional to the level of attention you give to your intentions(developing
your ideas) hence I say *pay adequate attention to your intentions so that your
world will not stand at attention for the world to give your desired attention,
recognition and celebration*
Thank you
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