The World Always Has Room For A Good Idea

No matter how cluttered, crowded, and chaotic things are, a good idea breaks through.

The 4-Train at 5:47 pm was packed.

This observation to any New Yorker is the antithesis of news. This is a daily, 100-year-old inevitability.

Yet, I desperately needed to board this train.

And as I heard the familiar conductor’s refrain of, “Stand clear of the closing doors,” I took my cue and leaped from the platform into the doorway of the subway car slicing into the wall of human-sardines.

And wouldn’t you know there was, miraculously, a little room made for me.

I won’t go into the mechanics of space utilization that occurs in the middle of subway trains at rush hour.

Suffice to say, there always seems to be a little room.

And this, dear reader, provides the metaphor for today’s post: There’s always room for a good idea.

Now, as crowded and maddening as the world has been, space was made for things like: the wheel, the printing press, the airplane.

Big ideas.

There was also room made for things like The Great Gatsby, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Pulp Fiction and Seinfeld.

And as chaotic and cluttered as the world was we somehow found the space for VW’s “Lemon,” all of Apple’s “Think Different” work and, against all odds, Cadbury’s “Gorilla.”

Once off the 4-Train and ensconced in my apartment I curled up and embarked on the evening’s scroll. (iPhone: Another good idea.)

Something caught my eye and stopped my thumb.

It was the image of a middle-aged dude on a longboard skateboard.

Clicking on the link I saw it was an ad made by TBWA\Chiat\Day, one of our NY agencies, for one of our clients, LG.

I watched the film. A simple, wonderful moment of a dude on a skateboard sailing down an empty street in the early morning somewhere in Los Angeles.

His wobbly joy and wondrous delight is hypnotic and infectious.

There was a voiceover with some inspiring words making the case for optimism.

A dude, a skateboard, optimism.

And then the words “Life’s Good” appear.

LG.

And that was that.

A good idea.

No, not as giant as the heavyweights listed above.

But a good idea nonetheless.

And as cluttered and crowded as the world is today, there is, somehow, plenty of room for it.

So, no matter what you’re working on right now the one thing you needn’t worry about is fit.

There’s plenty of space available.

Because the world always has room for a good idea.

Photo: LG.