First, the Idea

(Sunday Blooming Reading – May 25th)

As strange as it sounds, countless people seem to value the thing more than the idea.

If it can be touched, seen, smelled—if it has weight, takes up space, or fits in a drawer—it’s “something.”
Meanwhile, what can only be imagined, thought, or said is treated as less than. As if the idea were “just” an idea.

But here’s the twist:
Sometimes the thing that breaks, rusts, clutters, or fades is worth more than the thing that makes you weep with joy, spiral into sadness, change your life, or ripple through generations.

Many forget—or never realize—that most things began as ideas.
(Maybe even all of them did?)

Before the axe came the desire to divide.
Before the ladder came the urge to rise.
Before clothing came shame.

First, the idea.
Then, the thing.

I don’t believe humans are the only ones with ideas.
When a bee returns to the hive and signals where the pollen-packed flowers are—isn’t she carrying the idea of flower, the idea of place?

Maybe what sets us apart is our ability to express ideas that refer to what doesn’t exist.
Ideas about “not-things.”
Ideas that imagine the imaginary.

Gregory Bateson once said that most animals don’t lie.
They don’t say “what isn’t.”
They communicate what is: what they sense, see, want, or need.

But I’m not entirely convinced.

I adore human creativity, but it’s not very creative to believe we’re uniquely brilliant.
Surely some animals invent, pretend, imagine—even lie.

Isn’t it wonderfully disturbing to imagine the imagination of a bear?
Or the proto-lie of a spider?

But let’s circle back.

Here’s my question to you:
What do you think?

Do all things begin as ideas?

Forever Curious,
Blithe Ernst