Aha Moments

A recurring thing in my life is to be napping or zoning out in a meeting or dreaming at night, and a great truth is revealed to me - I get a great revelation that solves some big problem or creates a new opportunity.   I come out of my reverie excited and vow to remember this very very important new information...   only to realize that as it dissolves back into the ether that it makes no sense.

I've been mystified by these false Aha moments, but I think I finally have an answer:  In my everyday life, I solve problems regularly - I have great ideas, insights present themselves.  To get there, I tap into a creative source, the same place I get music from - a creative reservoir - I think of it as "the blue", and when I'm well connected to it, it really helps me every day.

I think that the Blue is not a personal resource, but a shared one.  I think about how often that you hear that "I had a great idea, and it turns out some other guy started a company JUST before I did - dang it!" or how you might have an insight, and then see it as emerging in other posts on Facebook.  It feels like sometimes there's a lot of shared insight - and maybe it's just pattern recognition, or maybe it's insights from a shared place.

I'd like to believe that when I get a new idea from the Blue, it's on me to act on it, or it will pass along to someone else.  The Blue wants ideas out there, and if someone is just taking them but not acting on them, the blue moves them along.

So my working theory is that when I have these False Aha moments, it's actually because I'm idly dipping my mental toes into the Blue in a receptive state, and am overhearing someone else's aha.  But my brain tries to put it into the context of what I'm thinking about, and I get the benefit of Aha, but none of the relevance or meaning.  I'm overhearing an idea without context.

This one has been knocking in my brain for a week, and I just wanted to type it out.