The Art of Grit

Or: A Meditation on Mental Courage and the Curious Case of Swimming Upstream

(10 minutes)

David Lynch once said that ideas are like fish—if you want to catch a big one, you have to go deeper. This struck me as profoundly true, though I suspect Lynch has never actually been fishing with me. I’m the person who gets excited about minnows and somehow manages to scare away the salmon with my enthusiastic splashing.

But here’s the thing about idea fishing that nobody tells you: most of us are standing knee-deep in the shallows, convinced we’re deep-sea diving. We cast our lines into the kiddie pool of our comfort zones and wonder why we keep catching the same tired thoughts about what to have for lunch or whether we should reorganize our sock drawer (again).

The Shallow Water Syndrome

There’s a peculiar safety in shallow thinking. It’s warm, predictable, and you can always touch bottom if things get scary. The ideas that swim here are familiar—rehashed conversations, recycled solutions, and thoughts so well-worn they’ve got comfortable grooves in your brain. These aren’t bad ideas, mind you. They’re just… domesticated. They’ve been house-trained and know exactly where their food bowl is.

But every now and then, something larger moves in the depths. You catch a glimpse of a shadow, a flash of something magnificent that makes your creative pulse quicken. This is when the real test begins: Do you wade deeper, or do you convince yourself that what you saw was probably just a plastic bag?

The Fear of Deep Waters

Going deeper requires a particular kind of courage—not the kind that gets you on roller coasters or through horror movies, but the quieter bravery of sitting with uncertainty. It’s the willingness to pursue an idea even when you’re not sure where it’s heading, or whether you’re qualified to be its captain.

I’ve noticed that my best ideas often arrive wearing disguises. They show up as half-formed notions that seem slightly ridiculous, or connections that make sense only at 2 AM when my rational mind has clocked out for the day. The temptation is always to dismiss them. “That’s impractical,” whispers the inner critic. “That’s been done before.” “What if people think you’re weird?”

Here’s what I’ve learned: if an idea doesn’t make you at least a little uncomfortable, it’s probably still swimming in the shallows.

Building Your Fishing Courage

The art of idea courage isn’t about becoming fearless—it’s about becoming friendly with your fears. Think of them as fishing buddies who happen to be really pessimistic but mean well. They’re going to point out every reason why you might not catch anything, but they’ll also be there to help you reel in the big one when it bites.

Start small. Wade in a little deeper each time. Maybe today you write down that weird connection you made between cloud formations and project management. Tomorrow, you might actually research it. Next week, you could share it with someone who won’t immediately suggest therapy.

The key is to develop what I call “productive foolishness”—the ability to pursue ideas that seem slightly absurd while maintaining enough self-awareness to know when you’ve crossed into actual absurdity. It’s a delicate balance, like walking a tightrope made of curiosity.

The Equipment Check

Before you venture into deeper waters, you need the right gear. Not fancy equipment—most of the best idea fishing happens with surprisingly simple tools. You need a way to capture ideas when they surface (because they have a tendency to disappear the moment you turn your back), some patience, and most importantly, the radical notion that your thoughts might actually be worth pursuing.

I keep a notebook that I’ve mentally dubbed “The Idea Graveyard and Resurrection Center.” It’s full of half-baked notions, terrible puns that seemed brilliant at the time, and the occasional gem that makes me wonder if my subconscious might actually know what it’s doing.

The Art of Following Through

Here’s where most of us falter: we catch the idea, admire it briefly, then throw it back because we’re not sure what to do with it. It’s like catch-and-release fishing, except we’re releasing everything, including the ones worth keeping.

Following through on an idea doesn’t mean you have to revolutionize the world by Thursday. It means giving your ideas the courtesy of investigation. Poke at them a bit. See what happens when you apply gentle pressure or shine different lights on them. Some will fall apart immediately, revealing themselves to be the mental equivalent of fool’s gold. Others will surprise you with their resilience.

The Deep End Philosophy

The deeper you go, the stranger things get. This is not a bug; it’s a feature. In the depths, ideas don’t follow the same rules as they do in shallow water. They combine in unexpected ways, develop characteristics you didn’t know they had, and occasionally evolve into something entirely different from what you originally thought you were pursuing.

This is where the real magic happens—not in the catching, but in the courage to keep swimming even when you can’t see the bottom. It’s about trusting that the process of exploration is valuable even if you don’t end up with a trophy fish to mount on your wall.

Sometimes the biggest catch is simply discovering that you’re braver than you thought you were, and that the depth of your own thinking might surprise you if you’re willing to take the plunge.

A Final Cast

So here’s my invitation: next time an idea surfaces—weird, impractical, or seemingly impossible—resist the urge to immediately throw it back. Wade in a little deeper. See what’s swimming around down there. You might catch something extraordinary, or you might just catch a cold. But either way, you’ll have exercised that most essential creative muscle: the courage to follow your curiosity wherever it leads, even if it leads somewhere you’ve never been before.

After all, the shallow end is nice for wading, but all the interesting fish are swimming somewhere else entirely.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some ideas to pursue. I hear there’s something big moving in the deep end of my imagination, and I’ve got my fishing gear ready.