Someone goes out on a date with an isosceles triangle.

I have ideas for things. And most of the ideas I have are not good.

What makes an idea good?

As I see it, a good idea is one that implies a certain trajectory, that points in a direction. In just a few words or a couple of sentences—anything more than that, and it’s something bigger than an idea—it gestures to a whole framework that it could support, if it were asked to support it; if, that is, you grew the idea, made it into an essay, poem, short story, screenplay, whatever.

This is not to say that anyone could look at a good idea that’s been written down somewhere and see the trajectory it gestures to, thereby recognizing the value of the idea. These things are utterly subjective.

If you show a good idea you’ve had to someone, or tell them about it, you can’t count on them to see the direction that idea points in. The implied framework most likely isn’t there for them.

That’s why it’s so often fatal to an idea, to share it with someone prematurely. If you want them to see it for what it really is, you have to build it out first, and show them the parts that you can see in your head.

Even the most brilliant idea is like a fragile egg. Hand it to someone and it will break. Tell them about it and it will elicit a nod and look of confusion—even from the smartest, most loveliest, and creativest people. It’s incredibly hard to make them see in the idea what you see in it; so it’s best to keep it to yourself, for as long as you can justify doing that.

I like to write my good ideas down in a little notebook, just like the character who’s played by Peter Dinklage in Elf. And if someone stole my notebook—maybe after taking my life? maybe at the grocery store?—they wouldn’t see any value whatsoever in the things I’ve written there.

A good, representative example of what I’m talking about here is where I’ve written, in my little notebook:

Someone goes out on a date with an isosceles triangle.

I couldn’t tell you why I think this is a good, viable idea—for what? A short story?

I don’t know. It sounds like the most idiotic thing in the world.

But I know where that sentence-length idea came from. I was there when it came into my head. I know what it means.

For me, that sentence is a trail of breadcrumbs that leads back to some obscure part of my clouded mind, where sometime recently I discovered a path that led somewhere I haven’t gone, a path I haven’t taken, because I haven’t written that story out. I haven’t pursued it, but the path remains; the idea still has some potency for me. I know that if I ever have the time and inclination, I can go forging through my stupid brain and see where this impulse takes me.

“Impulse” seems like a better word for what I’m talking about. I don’t like the word “idea.” It sounds too abstract, or something.

The reason I was even thinking about that this morning is that, on my way home from the bus stop, walking through the severe cold, I thought of an idea I think of often, for some reason. It is not a good idea; I think the reason why I keep thinking of it is that it’s so stupid.

The idea is that there’s this guy who has kids, and they’re his kids, and he loves them. In fact, he’s brimming with warm, paternal feelings. In fact, he’s so moved by his experience of fatherhood and the miracle of children, every day, all the time, that he can hardly function. He doesn’t help out with anything around the house; he doesn’t lift a finger to help raise his kids. But he’s not neglectful. Not really. He’s there. His daughter asks him for a graham cracker, and he collapses in a chair, weeping, because he’s so moved by his child’s simple desire. “All she wants in this world is a graham cracker,” he says. “All the happiness in the world is there for her, in that box of teddy grahams." And so someone else has to get the kid her graham cracker, while he endures this emotional onslaught. It’s completely exhausting for everyone around him, but he’s having what amount to religious experiences, and for him it’s wonderful.

That’s it.

I can’t do anything with that idea, or impulse, or whatever. But I think about it all the time.

When I read some writers’ first novels, like Thomas Pynchon’s, to take one example, I sometimes think that what I’m seeing is an assemblage of a great assortment ideas like this one. They’re less a coherent narrative than a bunch of impulses that have been followed to their conclusions, strung together loosely, and shaped into a haphazard whole.

I don’t know.