Epiphany has little to do with either creativity or innovation. Instead, innovation is a slow process of accretion, building small insight upon interesting fact upon tried-and-true process.
Lots of creative people report going to bed thinking about something and waking up with an insight. I make a point of not thinking about stuff for an hour or so before bed. I'm sure this decreases my stress and improves my quality of life, but does it make me less creative?
3 comments:
My Grandfather says that the subconscious is always at work. No matter if you go to bed an hour after working or not. Not working before going to bed just helps you sleep deeper which probably helps you to focus and work better the next day :-)
My grandpa has done some research that basically says the key to epiphany is like you say not raw talent, it is hard work and in addition...allowing the part of your brain (the subconcious) which is always at work to make itself heard and recognized by the concious.
That's kind of a difficult thing to do, but he recommends starting with dream logs.
I also have a pet self-congratulatory theory: mine is that people with somewhat difficult lives of a certain type are more creative and thoughtful (where difficult could be anything as small as being left-handed or an insomniac, to being dyslexic or having a parent die when you're young) because you are forced to find solutions to your problems. Its important that the problems are not shared with those around you I think, so that you have to try hard to be normal when you are little. My theory is maybe even less clearly defined and poorly supported than yours :)
I went to bed last night not having a clue how to write something. Woke up and immediately wrote over half of it. While not proof this is interesting.
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