The Graveyard of Brilliant Ideas

Who knew I had a giant cemetery in my very own attic?

Little-girl me was a big dreamer. I believed that I could make a difference; that I could change things. I strongly believed in the following Japanese proverb:

Generated by GPT.

Turns out, this Japanese proverb is probably not even Japanese. My inspo was also an imposter. But, anyway…

Once upon a time, I thought I’d solve a fancy math equation like the Navier-Stokes or something.

Apparently, I had watched too much of the movie Gifted. If you dared to challenge my abilities, I’d look at you like this:

Snap from the movie Gifted, picked from Wiki.

Then, I wanted to fly around the world as a neurosurgeon, saving lives.

Mostly, I wanted to travel a lot and get out of the house. I think.

Also, it’d help me feel important.

It doesn’t help that the neurosurgeon dream was borrowed right off from a friend. Zero brain cells required to formulate a future plan.

After that was when I learned that:

Generated by GPT.

As I grew older and more mature, I wanted to be an English instructor for Chinese students.

I even took two Chinese courses.

But can I say more than ni hao?

Well, maybe… But obviously not nearly enough.

Finally, I wanted to be a professional ghostwriter.

And I was a ghostwriter; worked on 45 books, even. But that was second-hand work, which meant that I didn’t interact with clients directly, and I got no testimonials to my name.

I left about two years later with zero clients and testimonials.

Then, I wanted to be an editor and beta reader. At least that way, I could claim my work as my own.

So I made a LinkedIn page and a Medium account and a Substack.

But I got permanently rejected by the Medium Partner Program, which means that anything I write here earns zilch.

Got zero clients off LinkedIn.

Now, my new hobby is collecting rejection emails in a special inbox on my Gmail account. That’s fun.

And now, I’m a free bird who professionally believes in God’s plan and Fate.

Oh, and an architecture student on the side… that’s something. It’s my professional degree, one that I’m doing intenships and all-nighters for, and it’s the one thing I don’t have big dreams about.

Honestly, wherever Fate takes me, I’m good. I’m going right where it wants.

A lifetime of building epitaphs and cemeteries for “brilliant ideas” has taught me — if anything — that the best ideas for me aren’t always my own ideas.

And so, I have to believe, like it or not, that

Generated by GPT.

Meta Marvelia, thank you for inspiring me to write this introspective piece. It was tough to start off, but quite fun eventually.

Also, to Sriram Yaladandi for starting the pub…

This story was written in response to The Graveyard of Brilliant Ideas — A Writing Challenge hosted by Pen With Paper. The challenge invites writers to revisit abandoned dreams, unfinished projects, and ideas left behind, and to reflect on what they might say if given a voice. Read the challenge and join the conversation by sharing a story from your own graveyard of brilliant ideas.

[embed]The Graveyard of Brilliant Ideas — A Writing Challenge Writers, dreamers, chronic project-abandoners… Uhm… aren’t we all?medium.com

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