When I read the description of inspiration by the poet Coleridge, “as being attuned to the divine or mystical ‘winds’, and that the soul of the poet was able to receive ‘vision’ I initially thought his quote was referring to the elements of chance in creativity. It wasn’t till I read Steve Jobs’ quote, “Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something.” Then it hit me; I understood what the poet Coleridge was referring to. It’s not just about chance, it’s about “seeing” the connections. All this time I was subconsciously making connections without knowing it.
By “seeing the connections”, I’m referring to our ability to find a common thread from a number of sources, to create from our own unique perspective. It’s in our experiences, and our ability to link random circumstances, that fuel creativity. Much like Kearn’s champagne cork accident to his eye lead to the reinvention of windshield wipers by linking the motion of the wiper to the human eye. He was able to received the “vision” by connecting two experiences.
Inspiration is all around us, we just need to be able to see the similarities between random occurrences and our own experiences. Like Coleridge described it, we need to be attuned to the mystical winds.
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