Our most creative inspiration eureka thoughts appear out of the blue. The most outrageous scientific breakthroughs appeared out of the minds in altered states of consciousness – sleepiness, dreams, theta states, let-go states. It seems that logical ration thinking, essential as it is, will only take us so far. After that there is a period of wandering without being lost when the craziest and most sane solutions appear like fortune for the taking. Newton’s apple moment, Fibonnaci’s series completion, Einstein’s rainbow riding all came out of the blue when thinking was turned off and the mind was tuned to a different channel.
Burnout and stress and simply fed up and un-creative states of mind are like being in a closed room with the same film being re-run on a loop. The only ideas in that place are stale reproductions empty of vitality. It is vitality and freshness that enlivens energises and creates. So the solution may be to move out of that room of closed loop thinking into an unfamiliar state of place, if we’re really lucky, a state of grace.
First we need to acknowledge that it is possible that we may not know everything. While we believe our own fiction of knowing who we are, that we can’t change, that we know all about our special subjects, that experts have told us and the majority believe it — other avenues are closed. They are closed because we are not looking for them, not even in our dreams or fears. In fact shocks can often be the catalyst that opens this closed loop and seems to shout at us to wake up. But we don’t have to rely on chance or shocks or difficulties to force us to open our eyes to something new. We can use our logic to assess the situation in a simple way. Is this how I want to feel? Is this good enough? Yes then carry on. No, then consider that the brain works like google-search and what you look for begins to appear.
