The Answer to the Inspiration Question: GROUT

After months of receiving Google alerts on the word "Inspiration" (and receiving nothing but spiritual or miscellaneous and ultimately personal references), something of interest finally arrived this morning. Granted the source is design-oriented, but the observations and questions from this blog are universal in their relevance to the topic. Here's the blog:

http://nick.typepad.com/blog/2007/11/flushed-with-in.html

The question raised is around the seemingly consistent power of the bathroom as a wellspring of inspiration. Here are a few comments I particularly want to reference:

"I guess the common denominator here (looking at the comments so far) is situations when your mind is bored with the current (lack of) stimuli, and thus start to wander and process "backlog information" just to break out of the boredom. :-)"

"The, often, stark-ish (not ers!) surroundings, like large expanses of white (tiles) leave no clutter for the brain to focus on, so it goes for a creative walk."

What I find fascinating is that this is a phenomenon we have all experienced and yet our philosophy of Look At More Stuff is also valid. More stimuli? Less stimuli? Which is truer? Are they both true? Or is the secret that you need both as an alternating resource?

If I had to take a guess, I would say that you need to "fill up" on stuff and then account for a time and space to allow your brain to operate as a sieve or metal detector, sifting through all the stuff until it finds something valuable. I particularly like the notion of the brain having a pantry of inspiration, so to speak. "Hmmm...nothing fresh in the refrigerator...I guess I'll have to hunt in the cabinet for something I stored away earlier." This metaphor helps me articulate a notion I have been carrying around. Inspiration is both an active and passive endeavor. We need to go out and "shop" whether we are are making a specific meal or not. We need to keep the shelves stocked. Then when we are starving and the stores are closed, our brains naturally will forage for something tasty that we squirreled away previously. So at first we need to learn to shop (look at more stuff). It will be a concentrated effort at first, but at some point the habit becomes second nature, and then the process starts to work for you without subconsciously...which transforms the blank environs of a shower into harvest season for inspiration and ideas.