Where Do Ideas Come From?

Ideas are like a hairball in a shower drain. Or vomit. Or anything less disgusting you would prefer to think about that is a mixture of all kinds of stuff.
Like bubble-and-squeak, or a smoothie made from whatever’s been in your fridge for more than a week.

Every day, we’re bombarded with information. That’s what an idea is: it’s life, it’s the everyday objects, situations and ‘what if’s that get stuffed into a mind on a daily basis.

The brain will keep the bits it finds intriguing or it decides would be useful information for later. But there’s only so much room for things in a mind, so it’s going to connect some things to others, blending circumstances and jokes and feelings into a ball of mind-slush. This mind-slush whirls around the head, absorbing more and more of whatever it comes across and adds it to the mishmash already there.

The pressure builds and builds, coming closer and closer to the forefront of the mind until it takes up so much thought-space that you’re constantly thinking of it and purposely adding new stuff into the crazy, mixed-up monster of a thought in your mind. When the pressure becomes too much, it explodes, leading to the ah-ha! moment when all the puzzle pieces have been put together and the idea is cohesive enough to write down.