Flashes Of Creativity

Eric Hoffer famously quotes that flashes of inspiration surface from our unconscious, without warning or prompting. They come to us briefly and powerfully. These creative hunches are unpredictable, seemingly at random, and we cannot induce their arrivals in our imaginations. Hoffer wants us to write them up and explore them fully so that messages of creative inspiration that visit us are not lost due to indifference or neglect. We must nurture these original messages to grasp their full meaning and scope. These flashes are divine gifts sent to us by the Good Spirits, and they are the source of our creativity.

I have often wondered if prompting these flashes to surface from our unconscious can be unnaturally forced by us to visit our conscious state at an increased rate. I now think that we cannot interfere with the unexplained flow of these flashes, or predict or increase the regularity of their visits. We at least cannot do so directly. What we can do is maverize, write, paint, think, tinker and invent, and these intellectual and artistic activities may make it more likely and favorable for flashes of insight to visit our conscious states of mind. By thinking clearly and without illusion, we may find that our cluttered minds are now more receptive to flashes, or that our alertness may ready us to receive them when they arrive, recognizing, appreciating and recording them for what they are.