From Where Does It Arise?

If there was a way to understand the creative process and a way to copyright it and publish a book on demand from Amazon, I’d be rich.

I have an idea of from where the ideas come.

Ideas come from a place that is different than where I’m looking. Some nebulous place that suddenly opens a narrow slot in a thick cloud layer and illuminates for a very brief moment an idea concealed in fog and mist. An idea that was misshapen and blurred, its shape undefined and soft, lacking depth and weight.

Its appearance is brief. Brief but powerful. Powerful enough to rip us from the isolating danger of failure. Of fearing that we’re failures and should have been doing something more productive with our lives. More productive than being creative.

As the light intensifies, the idea’s edges begin to sharpen, cutting through the fog with increasing determination. It slowly takes form, emerging from its hazy shroud like a sculpture being freed from marble. Details that were once swallowed by the mist start to surface—distinct, vivid, compelling. It gains substance, becoming solid and impactful, as if the light not only reveals but also creates, layer by layer.

This idea, once a shadowy figment, now stands robust with intent and intricacy. It becomes something with its own demands, pulling us into deeper engagement. As we give it more detail, it starts to breathe, to whisper back to us with suggestions and directions.

Now the vague idea resolves itself into something tangible. Exposed to light it begins to be shaped and molded by our participation at its birth. It takes on form. We give it function.

It evolves with our involvement and, at last, is removed from the blurred and unformed past and molded into the present changing the fortune of itself and us.

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