Let’s say you and I go pick up a Dirty Diet Coke and a sugar cookie. We’d drive to a nearby park, and we’d sit on a park bench (this is Arizona, remember?) and chat while we munched and sipped.
“Mmmm…I like that touch of lime,” you’d say.
“I like the coconut undertones,” I’d reply.
“The cookie’s a bit too chewy for my idea of a sugar cookie,” you’d add. “But still, it’s delish.”
Only, you probably wouldn’t say “delish” because we only really shorthand things like that in texts or on Facebook and other social media zones. Even though it is “totes adorbs,” it sounds pretty silly in real life, doesn’t it?
Our conversation would wander from dinner plans to cloud formations, from recent things we read to the symbolism of some odd dream we had the night before. We might even discuss something religiously contentious, or skirt along the edges of politics. It’s always fun to see where things go when we talk.
Somewhere in there I’d get around to asking a question that’s been on my mind, but it’d be weird to just blurt it out without some context, or without having it relate even vaguely to what we might be discussing.
Since we aren’t having sodas at the park, I can just throw out the thought that I’ve been wondering about off and on for years. (If you want to grab a Coke or Mountain Dew or something non-caffeinated, go ahead, I’ll wait.)
Here’s the question:
Do you think there’s some inspiration or creative source or new ideas or muse somewhere in the atmosphere or something that different people tap into, or ask to access, or that they simply breathe in, that they then turn into art, or song, or a written work?
And a related question:
And if that’s the case, isn’t it likely that several, if not hundreds or thousands, could “come up with” the same or similar ideas all around same time?
And another question:
Is there really any original thought or are thoughts or the seeds of thoughts put into our heads?
Fine, it was three questions…
I see us finishing up our sodas and dusting cooking crumbs off our shirts long before we exhaust the possibilities of these questions.
Surely philosophers and psychologists, Mensa members and religious people all have something to add to the answers to these questions. I’m just wondering what the everyday, soda sipping, cookie crunching public thinks.
Here’s my two cents.
I’ve had many experiences where I’ve thought of an idea, or started writing a blog post, or hummed a made-up tune, and then, within a day, or a week someone else talks about, writes, or sings the same or eerily similar thing. What is that all about?
Seriously!
Cosmic music waves hitting in-tune people? Writerly angels whispering words? Serendipity? Inspiration? What is it?
I don’t think there’s a correct answer, but it’s a discussion I’d sure like to have, with or without a soda and cookie.
On second thought, cookies should stay in the equation.
Kami's Beautiful Morning 