Mystery of Creativity
The sources of an idea are mysterious as it rises from the deepest springs of your mind. You may create certain conditions, a certain readiness, for originating an idea, but you do not control the process at its source, so that if your mind does not cooperate you cannot force it to produce. There is indeed a blankness at the center of consciousness which every good thinker respects, knowing that the intellect cannot be coerced to yield anything but may only be coaxed or encouraged.
How encouraged?
You rely on the generative power of action—immersing yourself in your subject, reading about it, discussing it with others, making notes, writing out questions, trying different techniques—and at other intervals you wait, relying on the secret and deep working of incubation within your subconscious eventually to yield a surprise.
Nothing is certain, at all events, and the one who succeeds as a creative thinker will be the one who acts on trust over long periods of time. The author Judy Blume affirmed this principle as it contributed to her own success. “I don’t know how . . . the creative process works,” she said in an interview, “but I’ve come to trust it; I’ve come to trust that it will happen.”
thomas@discoveringyourintelligence.com