In a little community bookstore called The Pilgrim’s Way, located in a little seaside village, I gathered a stack of children’s books and went through them cover to cover.
My heart felt warmed and comforted as I read them. Children’s books can be so beautiful and poignant. They take us back to those times when the world was fresh, newly opened from a wrapper, when we planned all the great adventures we would someday have, when our hearts were still soft, not encrusted, but open, fluttering in a seashell.
That heart still beats inside the covers of these little gems. The best of these books are tales not just for children, but for the child who lives on inside all of us. This week, I want to share a beautiful children’s book called What do you do with an idea? It’s a book not just for little kids, but for all of us who have ideas and problems relating to these ideas. If you are a creative highly sensitive person or an INFP sensitive creative, you might end up loving and resonating with this book just as much as I did.
What do you do with your little fledgling idea as a sensitive creative or INFP?
Written by Kobi Yamada and illustrated by Mae Besom, What do you do with an idea? was a Gold medal winner at the Independent Publishers Awards and has many other awards and credits to its name such as the Moonbeam Children’s Book Award. In this beautiful tale, we accompany a little child who one day, has a hatchling idea for the first time ever. At first, he does not know what to do with this strange thing that has suddenly appeared. But over time, the child and the idea form a relationship. As they learn about each other, both the child and the idea undergo a change and their journey changes just about everything around them.
“Where did it come from? Why is it here?”
I wondered, “What do you do with an idea?”
That’s what we often ask ourselves, just like this little child. What do we do with an idea? Remember an idea that came up, when you were maybe very little. It would have appeared strange and different and you wouldn’t know what you were supposed to do with this weird little thing.
In the book, the child is in the same position. He feels that the idea is strange and fragile but he is not sure what to do with it. So, he just walks away from the idea. He acts as if the idea doesn’t belong to him. (Have you ever acted like an idea didn’t belong to you? What happened if you kept on pretending, like I have done in the past? )
But in this case, the idea is persistent. It doesn’t leave the child alone. It follows him around.
Worried about what other people would think and about how they would react to this strange little thing, the child hides the idea away.
He does not talk about it. He banishes it. In fact, he tries to “act like everything was the same as it was before my idea showed up.”
But then, something keeps nudging at him. Having hidden it, the child realizes all that the idea is to him. He understands that he is happier when he is around the idea. He misses it. There is something downright magical about what being around the idea does. In fact, the idea has a life all its own and the child realizes what the idea needs:
“It wanted food. It wanted to play.
Actually, it wanted a lot of attention.”
Understanding this, he starts caring for the idea. He gives it the food it needs. He plays with it. He gives it attention till it becomes bigger and bigger and still bigger. Now, it doesn’t look strange. Now, they have become friends.
Finally, mustering up his courage, the child decides to show off his new friend to other people. He is still scared that they will laugh at his idea or think that it is silly. He is still fearful, but he makes the jump.
“And many of them did. They said it was no good. They said it was too weird.”
These people tell him that he is wasting his time. His thoroughly weird idea will never become anything at all. Listening to their words, the child gets disheartened. He almost start believing what they are saying. He almost listens to them and once again starts to walk away from his idea.
Almost, but not quite.
Something has changed because the child has loved his idea so much:
But then I realized, what do they really know? This is MY idea, I thought. No one knows it like I do. And it’s okay if it’s different, and weird, and maybe a little crazy.”
It’s a watershed moment for the child. What do they really know?
After all, these people don’t know his idea like he does. After all, they don’t love his idea, like he does. He decides to take care of this thing that he alone knows.
He goes back to feeding it good food. He works with it. He plays with it some more. He builds a brand new house with an open roof so the idea can look up and see the stars. The idea is free to dream. It’s safe and protected.
With all this love and attention, the idea grows and grows and grows. It starts giving the child things too. For one, it gives him the ability to look at things differently. It shows him how the world looks when you change perspective.
The idea stretches him, makes him bigger and bigger. The child and his idea now go everywhere together. He can’t imagine life without it. It’s what makes everything come alive. Then one day, something amazing happens, something unexpected. After it has been loved and cared for a long while, after it has grown and become bigger, the day comes when the idea changes right before the child’s eyes. It spreads its wings. It bursts into the sky.
Now, it’s not just a part of the child. Now, it’s a part of everything.
In the last page of the book, there’s the child again. Only this time, he had that same crown on his head that the idea was wearing all this while.
Finally, the child realizes what is it that you do with an idea. You change the world!
This beautiful book reminded me of how ideas are such strange and breakable things. They don’t seem to make any sense when they come. They are little beings that need to be fed. They have their own size and shape even when they are little, their own life.
When they are small, we often don’t know whether they are an owl, an eagle or a hummingbird. We might never have seen those things when they were small. We don’t know how they start their life, how they begin. But if we feed these hatchlings and honor them, they grow in strength. They become who they are.
But we have to do our part. We have to give them a safe space. We have to play with them, work with them and let them look at the stars. We have to feed them so they grow and grow. .
This book is for anyone who has been shamed for having too many of those “weird” ideas. It’s for anyone who is scared by the strangeness of their ideas and doesn’t know what to do with them. It’s for all those amazing, wonderful, half-grown ideas you have shoved back into the cupboard or hidden in some dusty corner.
They might not be your idea of a graceful swan. They might not look as if they are like much at all. But you have to feed them and protect them. You have to nurture their life. They come as fledglings. Only with care will they grow and take flight. It’s all up to you.
What might happen if you give your idea all it needs? What might happen if you play with your idea, if you work with it?
How might you change it? How might it change you?
How might it change everything around?
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