"seeds, currents, and orbits" is a phrase I'm trying out as a way of framing the bits swirling around my head. A proposed taxonomy for organizing things that have not yet some to be.
Ultimately, ideas are, I suspect, the product of some manner of interplay between seeds, currents, and orbits.
It only just came to me. I'm playing with it. We'll see how it works out.
Seeds are the things you run across, the little fragments of an idea that might grow into something bigger. They usually need some help and nourishment before that happens though.
Seeds might also be dead: never able to grow no matter what you do. That's probably just part of the process.
Makes me think a little of Octavia E. Butler (Parable of the Sower and Wild Seed) and the plant from Annihilation.
As a concept, seeds are also somewhat connected to Zettlekasten (slip box notes) and the "nuggets" from my take on the atomic insights taxonomy, Nuggets, insights, reports, studies.
Currents are the themes and meta-themes that emerge from research and reading. They are the ongoing threads you unspool over time that lead you to new seeds and new orbits.
Currents are like a river, in that you can actively navigate them and use them to get somewhere (getting to the source) or you can float along and see where they carry you. You can also stand outside of a current and see what flows by, wading in when something interesting appears
"Orbits" is a concept I'm borrowing from Behzod Sirjani, and perhaps expanding a little. Orbits are the people and spaces you interact with. The people you exchange ideas with, the places and spaces in which you find those people.
I use the idea of orbits to point to people and communities that are sources exposure to what might be considered seeds and currents. Orbits are also spaces where ideas are tested and thinking is refined.