Most ideas aren’t bad.
They’re just not necessary.
That took me longer to understand than it should have. Enthusiasm is persuasive. It arrives early, speaks confidently, and insists that everything deserves a chance. But I’ve learned that enthusiasm alone is a poor editor. It’s generous when it should be selective.
These days, I try to ignore the ideas that arrive already asking to be liked. The ones that lean too heavily on novelty, or sweetness, or the promise of being “fun”. Those qualities aren’t useless — but they’re not decisive. They don’t tell me whether something will still matter once the first impression fades.
I’m more interested in the ideas that can sit quietly without being defended. The ones that don’t explain themselves straight away. If a flavour needs persuading, I tend to mistrust it. If it only works when everything else is turned up, I usually let it go.
That rule sounds severe written down like this. In practice, it’s clarifying. It removes the pressure to make something simply because it could exist, and replaces it with a simpler question: does this still feel right when the excitement has passed?
Most things don’t survive that test.
A few do.
Those are the ones worth taking seriously.
— Arty