I have recently come to a conclusion that a good idea is not nearly as important as explaining someone else’s idea better.

It happens everywhere. Case in point the new apple phones.. the ones we have to sell kidneys for and this time around find a friend who will help with the cause!

Someone will say something vaguely intelligent albeit poorly articulated . The thought is half-formed, the argument has holes and it arrives with the intellectual confidence of someone saying, “I don’t know if this makes sense, but…”

So naturally, everyone ignores it.

A few moments/minutes/ days later, someone more articulate says essentially the same thing. Except now it has context, examples and a phrase like “fundamental shift.”

Suddenly, it is brilliant.

The original person sits there thinking: That is what I said!! Except apparently mine needed subtitles.

Then a third person arrives, gives the idea a name, puts it into three boxes and creates puts it in a “framework”

Mind blown…Game over. We have a thought leader!

I see this everywhere. At work, someone says, “This is too complicated.” Nobody reacts. Three meetings later, someone announces that we need to “reduce cognitive load and simplify the customer journey,” and people start taking notes.. SMH!

In families, you can tell your parents to eat protein for twelve years with absolutely no effect. Then masi/mami/chachi says it over dinner and suddenly your parents decide eating protein is like consuming Amrit!

This family has apparently been running a lifelong consultancy based on my unpublished works.

And then there are the society WhatsApp groups, where ideas go to experience their entire lifecycle in approximately 45 minutes.

Someone suggests putting another dustbin near the gate. Someone smarter explains why. Someone creates a poll. Someone mentions “community responsibility.”

And just when everyone agrees, the contrarian arrives.

“Just playing devil’s advocate…”

Naturally.

The devil, it appears, has an extraordinary number of representatives in residential societies.

Suddenly the dustbin has implications for fire safety, property prices, stray dogs and the constitutional rights of Tower B.

By the end, nobody remembers why we needed a dustbin.

Perhaps this is simply how ideas work. They are born messy. Someone else cleans them up. Another person packages them. And eventually the world remembers whoever explained them best.

Which is unfair, but also useful information.

So I have learnt my lesson.

The next time I have a half-baked idea, I am keeping my mouth shut until I have baked it properly, given it three pillars and created a mildly pretentious name for it.

Because apparently having the idea is only half the battle.

The other half is making sure no one.. I  repeat no one can explain it better!

Till later!