Where do ideas come from?
Lately I’ve been sketching first thing in the morning (after a suggestion from Havi). It gives me the tug of Something Fun to get up early for, especially on days when sleeping in seems a better option than facing the pissing rain or pressure of things to do.
This morning I sat staring at the blank pages of my sketchbook. The very, very blank pages. And I thought “Where are all the ideas?” “Why don’t I have any?” All the while, an ear worm circling in my head: “Where the fuck do ideas come from?” (That one courtesy of Ze Frank’s brilliant riff on ideas as brain crack. Thanks for that one, Darren.)
So without further delay, here are two answers I came up with this morning. They’re not definitive, mind you. And I hope you will share your answers to these important questions in the comments.
The first answer is so obvious I’m probably not the first to think of it.
It must be the Greedy Squirrels.
You see, an idea manifests in your brain. When it’s ripe for the picking, before you even know what’s happening, it falls out of your brain and a greedy idea squirrel comes along and takes it. He then squirrels it away underground somewhere. So, odds are, when you see a truly fabulous tree, it’s thriving on the pile of ideas buried within it’s roots. So I say next time you’re short on ideas, go squirrel hunting! What the heck, it can’t hurt and it’s better than banging your head against the keyboard.
So that explains why you might lose an idea. Where do they come from in the first place?
Idea Factories
My theory is that orbiting the earth are giant indetectable idea factories. Day in, day out, minute after minute, they pump out ideas like so many widgets. So many in fact that they have an entire department devoted to randomization. This department ensures that every idea is just a little bit different from every other idea.
When ideas reach the end of the production line, they are shot out of thousands of giant Suessian tubes pointed at Earth. They travel the long, dangerous journey, and if they’re lucky enough to miss the satellites, airplanes, birds, and skyscrapers and such, they’ll land safely in one of our minds.
And if you are really lucky, the ideas you receive have lots of randomness and survived the journey without getting bruised or shat upon by a brid.
I think this theory explains why I get so many ideas outside or in the shower. Some of those ideas must land in the streams and end up coming through the shower head.
Now it’s your turn. Where do you think ideas come from? What/who’s to blame when you have none?
Posted: December 12th, 2008 under Art, Goofy, Fun & Cool, Life.
Comments: 3
Comments
I have two thoughts about this. First, I don’t really believe in the concept of “no ideas.” They’re always there, but you just can’t access them. Years ago I read about brain waves and how, when creative, a person’s brain wave activity is very close to the wave activity of dreaming. (I guess drifting around the alpha, theta, delta activity range.) This is why we tend to get lots of ideas as we’re nodding off to sleep (theta waves) – that state is sort of the “creative” state. Beta, where we spend most of our waking hours, is our alert/work state – great for spreadsheets, numbers and so on. So when the paper is blank and there are no ideas, it’s likely because your brain wave activity isn’t conducive to being creative. It’s probably best to walk away.
I also think that when our creativity is “stuck,” it isn’t. This is why I will walk away. I believe (no data on this – just a theory) our brains are being creative, but it’s kind of like a computer operation going on in the background. We’re making associations, mulling through things – processing – but not in a conscience way. And that’s why ideas often seem to come from nowhere. We’ve actually been thinking about them and working them out for quite a while. We just weren’t aware of it.
Comment from Bill at 4:23 am, December 13, 2008
I totally agree. Often I’ll find the solution to a web design or coding problem when I take a break, get outdoors, do the dishes or do something that lets my mind wander a bit. Then it comes to me in a flash.
Comment from Tzaddi at 3:31 pm, December 13, 2008
Nice post, you have just reminded me about how important design principles are.
Comment from web design Brisbane at 6:48 am, February 28, 2009
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