Crazy Idea Highs Vs. Wisdom

The Hook

I decided I’m going to climb Mt Everest with my brother in 2020. Got the thumbs up from mom (the one that doesn’t really mean approval, but the expectation that we will naturally fizzle out of the idea). I was on a Crazy Idea high – that feeling when an idea takes hold of you and lifts you a few feet of the ground, putting you in an advantageous position to run after it, above the friction of everyday life.

Then I told my Very Practical C. Girlfriend (VPCG) about the Crazy Idea. VPCG immediately expressed her thoughts on the stupidity of my endeavor and how we should prepare by climbing smaller mountains first, etc. etc. The Crazy Idea high deflated a bit and I felt myself lowered a few inches towards the ground. Still defiant, I went up to my room and Googled “Climbing Mt Everest with no experience”. Some nice folks on Quora wrote how climbing Mt Everest didn’t require much climbing skills and was instead the “industrialization of climbing” where “money could be used to get your way to the top”. Money buying success – that’s not inspiring.

Thump, I landed on the ground. The Crazy Idea high was gone. In its place is left a more softly burning yearn for adventure. How about climbing a smaller mountain that was less known, but maybe more technically challenging, scenic, cheaper.

I would like to imagine I gained a drop of Wisdom.

The Philosophy

There were clearly a few things going on here – extrinsic vs. intrinsic motivation for one. However, my thoughts took the track of Crazy Idea Highs Vs. Crazy Idea with Wisdom. More as a mindset and emotional state when working on a Crazy Idea rather than the idea itself.

On the spectrum of working on Crazy Ideas I see a person motivated by the Crazy Idea High, pushing their idea through regardless of whether it’s actually good or not, useful or not. On the other hands are folks who will calculate everything about what they are doing and make it all rather dry, but will end up doing something great. While both groups do great things their emotional state when doing it is different. The former is often more inspiring to watch. For example, the former might strike a picture of crazy uncalculated stunt feats while the latter might remind you of government or the UN.

Clearly though, the emotional state and approach don’t have to be mutually exclusive. We can have a wisdom full approach while being on a Crazy Idea high. It’s also probably a much more difficult state to achieve.

Conclusion

Have Crazy Ideas and let them spark motivation to study the background of a field thoroughly. Then evaluate the idea – break down what motivates you to do it. Are these the motivations you want for yourself? If so, pursue the Crazy Idea without stopping.

As people, once we begin to look into the background/practicalities of, we often see the road blocks and lose motivation. Versus if we went steaming full speed ahead into a road block, sometimes we make our way through/around it. While it might appear to be a feat of great courage/awesomeness, it is not wise for scattering could occur in any direction.

Post random thoughts

I realized I do this “/” thing with two synonymous words. I think it helps me more precisely describe (at least to myself) what nuance I want to give to the word. Not sure if it makes for good writing though…