Idea Corrosion

Look under your car. What do you see?

There’s a correlation between the age of a car and the condition of its undercarriage. The older the car, the more corrosion, rust, and grime build-up. If you live by the ocean or in a mountain town, add 5-10 years.

Exposure to the elements will slowly deteriorate anything we build. The only way to preserve something is to protect it from corrosive elements: light, air, water, salt, etc.

Ideas are like this. We “build” them, and they never corrode. They are perfectly preserved.

Until they interact with the elements of real life.

The test of a good idea is not in how it stands up in the preserved environment of our minds, but in how it holds up when it encounters the elements of practice, the pressures of life, the environment of human interaction.

Theories are great in theory. But if they corrode in practice, they’re not so great.