Learning through stealing

Muse #542 - innovativeness can be a shared art

Single roll paper towels sawed off into two half-rolls for dispensing

One could steal ideas from anywhere. If we use curiosity to solve problems, whatever such problems might be. My daughter was aghast at the number of paper towels we were using each day. The paper towel pieces have become smaller but yet for some uses are still too large for just one-time use and to throw away. So she was desperate to find a solution.

And desperation is good if channeled as creative tension rather than destructive emotion. She found an answer on TikTok where a TikToker was cutting the paper towels into two and using them as two half-rolls. And this she implemented. It is more than half a year now. and this has become the norm. I don’t even know now how we lived without this idea before. I even wonder whether the manufacturers themselves will implement something like this as a standard feature.

That is the beauty of curiosity. If you turn it up for problem-solving, great solutions come out of it. And yes, we may not do it for all aspects and all problems in our lives. For where we do, the benefits do flow. And a curious mind leads to novel ideas even if we have to steal them from somewhere as ideas don’t have a monopoly. Go ahead, be curious, steal ideas, innovate, experiment, act, review, reflect, and fine-tune. And then, repeat.