How Ideas Come to Us

Being creative requires you to become good friends with curiosity, patience, and fortitude.  

That’s because the best ideas rarely come on demand. Nor do they tend to reveal themselves to the impatient or distracted.  

Poet Ruth Stone tells how, while working the fields, poems would come at her. "It was like a thunderous train of air and it would come barreling down (at her) over the landscape." If she didn't capture it, the words would "continue on across the landscape looking for another poet." 

On any given day, are you ready for the ideas that will come barreling over the landscape? Or will they pass you by, looking for someone else?  

Ideas tend to show up in the least expected moments. Right before we fall asleep, in the silence of a drive or walk, during a long hot shower, or on the deck as we watch the sun rise or set. When we have time to breathe. 

We often miss them because they initially don’t seem like something important. The ideas are never fully formed. If they were, why would they need us? 

Unlike instant coffee, the best ideas need time to percolate. They intrigue and woo us but refuse to give away their secrets too easily. They keep us up at night, only to vanish as we wake. They invite us to not just chase them, but to savor them.

This explains the feelings of restless discontent you sometimes have. It’s totally normal. Because you’ve caught a glimpse of something before it has form. You see what others can’t. Not what is but what could be.  

Rather than dismiss something the world has no name for yet, give it time to develop. The first of anything rarely comes out fully formed…or with any guarantees.  

Don’t get tripped up when an idea won't let you go and others don't understand. That’s okay. The Creator does. He thought of the idea before you did. And he thought enough of you to trust you with it. 

Welcome to the life of the creative. Become good friends with curiosity, patience, and fortitude. Stay you, stay with God, and keep chasing those big ideas.

The world may think you've lost it...but you're actually on the verge of finding it. 

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