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Stinky Gifts From Your Idea Kitty

To attract ideas, carry a notebook.

Suddenly, armed with blank paper, your mind sends details to your attention.

90% of those ideas are crap. Your mind became a friendly neighborhood cat, delivering dead animals to your doorstep. Thank you for your kind gifts, kitty -- all these delicate carcasses are so nasty and yet so generous. But your true challenge is that 10% of the time, they're taxidermy squirrels stuffed with sand and sapphires.

Your mind will never improve at finding good ideas; that cat will always deliver 90% crap. What changes is you. You somehow teach yourself to sort and salvage. You learn to forgive yourself faster, to bury the dead, and to pay proper respect to Nature's harsh whims. You name this new feeling "intuition" and "taste" and sometimes "luck".

This phenomenon manifested when I started writing regularly. My hunches found a nest. My curiosity grew legs. My mind made miles of piles and infinite files for whatever these mountains of words will one day become.

After years of isolating myself, I tried a new platform. It's been delightful. I've rekindled old friendships, found new communities, and spread lots of laughter.

But as soon I created that profile, my cat changed its patterns. More ideas. Smaller ideas. Save this. Share that.

These ideas are still ~90% crap, but my intuition cannot yet appraise its new deliveries.

My dendrites grow so stiff with age; I'm afraid I'll learn kitty's new tricks too slowly this time. Only fools forget that cats have more lives than we poor mortals.

I so deeply want all that community -- all that belonging. But I can't afford more change. I'll try to visit as often as my old cat allows. Meanwhile, feel free to write me a letter. I'll be here, wherever this is.

Before I depart, I'll leave you with a powerful spell: a substrate (e.g. notebook, blog, profile, etc) summons its works (e.g. notes, essays, comments, etc). This is real magic. Try it at home.