# Obvious to you. Amazing to others.

Source: https://sive.rs/obvious
Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Obvious-to-you-Amazing-to-others?index=0x6479c0b96e85acb17f5bbe9a3a94c050a20d8e425e9595b8830aae5a4aefabe049ee263b
Submitted by rafig.eth on 2023-06-02 UTC, 7 upvotes, 0 comments

## Summary

The author argues that creators often judge their own ideas as obvious while others find them amazing, so they should share their work and let the audience decide. The piece describes the familiar experience of being stunned by someone else's work while feeling one's own ideas are ordinary. After receiving praise for an idea the writer considered nothing special, the writer concluded that everybody's ideas seem obvious to them, and cited John Coltrane and Richard Feynman as likely sharing that feeling. It also notes that hit songwriters often say their biggest hit was one they thought was not worth recording.

## Article

Obvious to you. Amazing to others.

2010-11-21

Any creator of anything knows this feeling:

You experience someone else’s innovative work. It’s beautiful, brilliant, breath-taking. You’re stunned. Their ideas are unexpected and surprising, but perfect.

You think, “I never would have thought of that. How do they even come up with that? It’s genius!”

Afterwards, you think, “My ideas are so obvious. I’ll never be as inventive as that.”

I get this feeling often. Amazing books, music, movies, or even amazing conversations. I’m in awe at how the creator thinks like that. I’m humbled.

But I continue to do my work. I tell my little tales. I share my point of view. Nothing spectacular. Just my ordinary thoughts.

One day someone emailed me and said, “I never would have thought of that. How did you even come up with that? It’s genius!”

Of course I disagreed and explained why it was nothing special.

But afterwards, I realized something surprisingly profound:

Everybody’s ideas seem obvious to them.

I’ll bet even John Coltrane or Richard Feynman felt that everything they were playing or saying was pretty obvious.

So maybe what’s obvious to me is amazing to someone else?

Hit songwriters often admit that their most successful hit song was one they thought was just stupid, even not worth recording.

We’re clearly bad judges of our own creations. We should just put them out there and let the world decide.

Are you holding back something that seems too obvious to share?