Mapping the Lost Idea

1. Brainstorming for a title on relosing the lost idea.What is a map of the process whereby an idea is lost, partially reclaimed, and lost again; that is, an idea that is never fully recovered but is regained partially and vaguely, and is unfulfillable with respect to its original configuration? The incipient reasoning behind the idea no longer seems available or, perhaps, valid. The desire to reinitiate the idea is strong, but it’s priority is diminished and it’s context is no longer familiar. It, the idea, has come to the future, into a new locale, within which it has no relationships. The desire to reclaim this rediscovered concept is similar to the wish to recover a lost lover, or one’s childhood wagon.

   1. Lost Idea: back to the future.

   2. Lost Horizon: voyage of the lost idea.

   3. Gone With the Wind: a travelog of the lost idea.

   4. Heart Throbs and Little Red Wagons: reconnecting with the lost idea.

   5. Vagueries: mining the lost idea.When it appeared, it felt so right. It was me.

      “Great Potential” suddenly appeared in glitter across my chest. Just fertilize this idea and it would, like the miracle of a new blossom, open and spew the essence of, oh, epiphany; the deliverance of a newly found spirit that would bewitch one; as a maternal seduction. But, for some reason, I chose not to feed it. It foundered. It disappeared. In time it was a heartfelt, but simply filed, memory.It feels tragic; like the confirmation of one’s lack of faith in their potential. See how even now it is idealized; given status beyond its own imagining. This is the dilemma with “great” ideas. They reach noble status before they evolve. They neither provide for nor suggest an interesting process, one that would develop toward a true, enlightened culmination.

   6. True Confessions of the Lost Idea.In order for an idea to achieve the status of “lost” (for “lost” begs attainment of uniqueness), it must occupy a distuinguished place in the psyche of its creator. Its distinctiveness is that it spontaneously sprang from a singular mind. It was owned, possessed, engraved; but it was not nurtured. As if stillborn, it was left to its unattended burial – under the residue and detritus of one’s preoccupations (perhaps the lure of a more engaging distraction).

   7. Fool’s Gold: remining the lost idea.When it, the lost idea, reappears, we experience sentiment, wonder and curiosity. A desire not only to fulfill the idea’s potential, but also to recapture the atmosphere, perhaps the “aura” that accompanied it; to recreate the line of thinking which led to its appearance and to what its ultimate manifestation implied.The discussion about then and now suggests a space, the space between conjuring and activity. A space which is at once empty and full . . . . . attention and distraction. The lost idea begs us to give it physicality, but it remains as shadow; the fatality of competing demands and swift calculus which determined its measure of unworthiness.That calculation is what remains with us. The memory of the analysis is forever appended to that form in which the idea has been recorded. The negative result of that initial rating is a stigma which colors, or stains, our perception of our own thinking. As with any initial rejection, (you can see it in their eyes even if it is not from their lips); perhaps it was not attractive enough, never fully worthy of serious intention. Perhaps, as we learn sometimes, it was simply a negation of our selves.But its reappearance stimulates a flirtation. There is intrigue and perhaps even fervor; a dance of reexamination and retrospection. There is the desire to bring to term one’s missing creation (even the partial idea is filled with gems); but the calculus reappears, the tabulation of one’s continuity, the memory of an initial rejection, the blemish of its once having been deemed . . . . . unsuitable.What about the lost idea, itself? Has it merely lain in the black book of forgotten reveries or does it have a journey? Like any spurned love its immediate presence has departed, but its aura, the aura that we, of course, created, has infested us with its promise. The wink that caught us, remains. It has infected us, invested itself within us. It is the retinal image that persists, of those eyes asserting, no, casting their message: “I want to know you; you to know me.” Hence, whenever we trip across it, abruptly, as in turning a page, it is wholely familiar. The image was rooted and has insinuated itself into our future product.The idea thus survives itself. Its essence, its obsessive promise is accounted for in every work. It has always resided within the creator, latently, and it continues to do so. As well, it surrounds the creator. Just as the obsessive love whose every attribute we ingeniously and artistically fabricate, the components of our idea remain present to be reconstituted and reconfigured.

      From this view there is no “lost.” There, in fact, may be no uniqueness of idea in our product, one work from another. It is not that there is only one idea, for the variations, the emphases, the layering and complexity all speak to thoughtfulness, deliberation and decision. However, there may be only one essence, the quality that gives one’s work distinctiveness and allows it to be recognized from another’s.

   8. Re-mapping the Lost Idea.

   9. Lost Aura: elements of sorrow.

2. The lost idea as a found object.It is important to be able to distinguish the “lost” idea from those thoughts which are mere titillating excitations. The truly lost idea, when reencountered, clamors for completion. There occurs this curious chain, wherein the lost idea, once a fresh and perhaps exhilarating experience, is immediately relived; but on further consideration, one recasts it as simply found information. The information may be still provocative, but in a way similar to any material which gives pause.Found, of course, is a word with specific art meaning. It generally refers to that which has ordinary origins, or it has been acquired and used in its rudimentary or completed state as opposed to having been constructed or created from inception. The lost idea was once created, but when rediscovered, it was in situ. It had been set down and abandoned; and the consequence of that inactivity was the formation of a contained and complete entity.The importance of acknowledging this change of state has to do with the author and their relationship to ownership or possessiveness. Found entities are unearthed in various ways: they may be accidentally discovered, or be selected from the simply available. They may be encountered in the familiar, or in fact rescued from someone else’ detritus. This latter category is most beguiling in that here is the widest separation from the finder’s authorship. Consider the complexities inherent in resurrecting another’s unused or discarded ideas. Where the original author is available, permission is generally suggested. That is the moral route. What if permission is not forthcoming? There the object lies unused; rejected yet possessed or claimed.There are different stages of idea. Roughly, the first is concept. One sketch or statement of intention sets down the parameters for future development. It may have been developmentally arrested, or perhaps aborted, if you will. One wants to revive the potential, to will it to actuality, to sustain it, to see it mature. Nurtured by a different parent it will not be the same child as with the one who conceived it. Here the dilemma is flushed. The grey areas and discontinuities are contested. Claims and counterclaims can occur in a futile attempt to control the future and guide a specific event; which obviously (as it is impossible to forecast anything specific) is indeterminable.Since there is some uncertainty here as to the difference between lost and extant; for the purpose of eliminating distraction, at least for now, i need to exclude ideas that are being actively pursued, or that are in the active files of their creators; not in fact, lost. Film treatments are an example, or art proposals.

   10. The Lost Idea: institutional perogative.Found also begets a certain nobility. That kind of designation has to be placed on some thing, which in effect establishes the status of objecthood onto our found entity, the idea. Once contemplation, space, romance; the idea has metamorphosed into the territory of the concrete. It has earned a new rank: affection, admiration. There is dignity in detritus. Not like the poetic but arguable admiration of the monuments of Smithson’s Passaic, which were reconstituted only in name; but in the acknowledgement of the personal history which confirms one’s presence. Like a trophy, it is manteled. Located in a position of honor, it is perhaps never to be reseen. Or, maybe, as one’s eyes wander, half-gazing, there is a glimpse, a temporary rest on the reminder of one’s passing. It is a suggestion of potential, of possibilities. The dignity of the object, our momentary idea, returns for a brief moment to serve its maker. Creativity and object temporarily devolve to ontology.

   11. Lost: and found.

3. Putting lost to rest: temptation, flirtation, contemplation.It has not passed notice that issues discussed here might have raised implications toward the “second appearance.” Given that we are not knowledgeable in those areas, suffice it to say that the metaphors are achnowledged but unintended.The “lost idea” resides in a state of suspension. One’s inability to derate it, to let it go, to abandon it to the status of negligibility is appropriately related to one’s desire to power. The act of suspending the idea is correctly placed within the totality of an ontological system. As if power were the basis of existing, one’s pretention to owning the potential for greatness allows also for the possibility of their knowing that they exist.It is important to have some promise that we exist; that is, not only we, but also the world, the universe and all the physical things that are labeled as concrete. We want to know that we do exist, but so far we have only faith about that, we have not yet established it, in fact. If our thoughts are not merely “lost”, but truly gone, how do we have any assurance that we are here? This is , I suppose why, for many, the potential for that “reappearance” must remain in place.I question myself, though. Why is it important that we have indications of being? I suspect that otherwise, we would not have the will to or know how to organize as a society. Having confirmation that we exist supports our idea of history and proves that what is designated for us is correct.Give up the idea. Admit that it was never “a good one.” Let it be gone. Speculate on the relevance of faith. It was just and idea.

4. And found.Then one day someone asks, in the context of relaxed discourse, why you have carried that momento with you for most of your life. Well, I don’t know. It just has a strong connection with my past; with my father’s life and the earliest parts of my cognitive memory. It’s a book, and I look into it from time to time out of curiosity or for a reminder of something familiar, yet unknown. When I try to remember why it is the thing I carry, or try to examine its obvious significance, I am void. And when I try to use it as a basis for creative work, I can’t. The material will not translate to a creative impetus.

   12. Origins: just a momento after all.There is no requirement that the “idea” be a conscious one, or explicit. The lineage of product is sometimes more obvious to the audience than to the maker. Then there appears, quite accidentally, the clue which indicates that what one may have previously thought was “the idea”, or even an absence of idea, was in fact a disguise.With respect to absence, I am referring to the condition wherein one has the impression that they have in fact never experienced an ideatic epiphany. This person has reflected on what idea means, has looked at others who have been dedicated to the accomplishment of unique and solitary adventures, and has decided that the examples of assiduousness that they see are unique and seldom. In this person’s thinking there is no dedicated direction to their own behavior. They have little idea why they have chosen the path they are leading, but do acknowledge that they have chosen one.Is there a difference between the reason for dedicating one’s life to the making of model flying machines; or to becoming a construction plumber, getting married and raising a family? How do we define extreme commitment? What, in fact, is more profound: to choose a life of creative expression, or to deny that choice? In American society a life involved in artistic creativity, while appreciated, is in substance deprecated. Therefore, the desire to avoid such disparagement makes easier the rejection of one’s creative spirit. With some there occurs an epiphanyl moment which propels them into a particular life direction. However, in the life of the flying machine maker, or the convert, or the one who consorts with avoidance; in all of these it is possible that there was at one time an “idea.”One’s lack of awareness of the ideatic experience makes the discovery of the clue momentous. The absence becomes present, though not material. The idea itself, though not revealed, but the discovery that an idea possibly exists, lurking and unreachable, opens access to an apprehension of a path. The path follows backward to a disclosure. The idea was a message we all heard, but some forgot; incentive and betrayal. Our listening gave us direction but our forgetting was a withdrawal from knowledge, a negation of our own awakening.

   13. Lost and Rosebud.Perhaps there has been a series of lost ideas; one following on another, like dreamwork trying to reach and inform us that there is ground beneath our decision-making after all. The lost ideas, if we want to give them order, are layered. When I look into my past and point to an idea which I consider lost, that idea is really pointing back to the previous one, and so on. It is not so much a layering of ideas, as it is a reassertion, perhaps a prompting, about the one idea; the idea that pointed to the path.And what about the betrayal? It was our loss of the idea. We followed our path, but we questioned it. We did not have the idea in front of us to answer our question. As we negated each ideatic layer, we would oscillate over our course, unable, in terms of our idea, to give relevance to our choices. The difference in what we are considering, then, is not between whether each one of us has an idea, but in our directedness; that is the acceptance that an idea does exist.One wonders, then about the idea itself. We know it was appropriate, for we trust our abilities. But what were the circumstances and the conditions which led to the idea? How far back can the idea occur? Can it be prenatal? Like Christopher Unborn, are we spying on the world, making decisions about our future, before we are here? In order to learn about the idea, we have to locate it. It is here and it isn’t. It is perhaps easy to accept that the idea is inextricably distributed within some vast labyrinth; that one’s efforts to assemble it are probably fruitless, and that there is valor in simply accepting one’s path. It is easy to settle for lost. But that is the way of less knowledge. It is not progressive, not as in the form of better, but in having to do with the aggregation of awareness.Thus, in the spirit of broadening one’s environment (in a Bergsonian way), we step forward carrying along with us our acceptance of our idea, while we explore backward seeking the discovery of its inception; first, the location of its loss, then its recovery, and again its loss.

   14. Time: an echo of our awareness.

December 15, 1998