Not original

Have you ever heard the phrase, "your ideas are not your own"?

Every idea comes from our experience of interacting with things in the world. This might be other people, our environment, experiences, or observing our cat hunting in the grass for hours.

This idea is not my own.

"We do not really understand our own ideas if we suppose them to be self-generating, that is, not owing their existence to extramental realities. The more we focus on our ideas in a way that systematically ignores their objective origins, the more unreliable those ideas become."
- D.Q. McInerny, Being Logical

My Personal Index project started as a way for me to curate ideas from many different sources related to particular topics or concepts. When reading I'd often find ideas or concepts written that I'd read about somewhere else. I could rarely remember the source or the full extent of the ideas.

Curating these ideas in a Personal Index and writing has helped me to form deeper understanding of concepts from multiple sources, form my own ideas based on my own experiences interacting with the world, and remember the origin of many of my thoughts. This is why travel is so valuable to me - new experiences are idea generators.

Ideas are downstream of our systems for information capture and absorption.

Read, travel, and write things down. You never know when it might be useful.

I wish I'd done this earlier.