The Tiny Idea
Every time I stand next to a sequoia—let’s say one that’s 90 meters tall—I think about how it started out as just a seed, and my brain steams into mist. (Those seeds, by the way, are only 1.5 to 3 millimeters long before they germinate. Microscopic, basically.)
Same thing happens when I think of Alexander Calder. Or the minister of economy. (Yes, wildly different types of output there, I know.) But still—both started out as just two cells. And even the Universe—yep, everything—was once squished into a single dot, much smaller than this period. Some people call that a “singularity”—and frankly, it really is a singular thing.
The point is: it takes so little to make something. Even something massive, gorgeous, or consequential.
And it’s the exact same thing with ideas.
You need VERY little to make an idea. (I mean it. Ideas aren’t something that just happen to you. They’re made.)
Look around you right now.
Every single thing made by people started with one tiny idea.
And it looked nothing like what you see now. Just like the Universe, the sequoia, Calder’s mobiles, and yes, the unfortunate finance minister—everything begins as something wildly different from what it becomes after years, decades, or eons.
It’s a huge mistake to think you can’t write a novel, build a home, live a fulfilling life, or invent one of the best insults in human history just because they seem “too big.”
Of course you won’t do it all in one go.
Books, buildings, lives and insults don’t arrive as full masterpieces. They begin with a single word (sometimes as small as “the” or “a”), a doodle on a scrap of paper, a private moment of release or reflection (not necessarily in that order).
What I want to tell you is:
Don’t ask too much of the idea.
Just let it be.
We’ll see where it goes.
If you’re waiting for a world-shaking revelation, or universal applause, or a divine stamp of approval before you let an idea appear, then sorry—but you won’t get any.
And once more, for the people in the back:
It takes so little to make an idea.
A clumsy sentence.
A twisted thought.
Looking at the back of something you’ve only ever seen from the front (which, in some cases, is wildly exciting).
Opening a book you’d never dream of touching.
Listening to someone you’d never give the time of day.
Playing with a ridiculous possibility.
(Who would even know, if it only happens between you and your own mind?)
What matters is this: making ideas is a daily, barefoot, coffee-breath activity.
It’s unpredictable, unglamorous, and occasionally divine.
You just never know what that tiny idea might become—
or where it might land—
or who it might touch.
And that’s the magic:
Ideas are the most common, everyday thing among humans.
But they’re also the most extraordinary.
Something you haven’t even dreamed of might be about to happen inside your head—
if you give it permission to begin.
Take five and a half minutes.
Start with something tiny.