It's time for a blarticle and I'm just past the nadir of a weird bout of flu, which has affected both my physical and mental abilities. Since I have none of my own, I've decided to (try to) write about inspiration. As in, where does it come from and how does one acquire it? I remembered a quote: "Invention is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration." I thought that it was from Thomas Edison, but I googled it to make sure. And guess what? There are a lot of variations of this quote, all attributed to Edison, but the most common, and possibly the most accurate, seems to be "Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration." [Of course, the process made me wonder, not for the first time, about the reliability of Wikipedia—is it really wise to trust a source that's based on what everyone believes to be true? What if the majority is wrong? It's happened before. And anyway, who knows what Tom actually said? Most quotes are reported by others and many of his were made before the days of sound recording. Maybe he really did state all the variations at different times, but whatever—there went my quote about inspiration. Or not, since they're all apparently in common usage. But I digress.]
I read every article I find on this topic and they all seem to agree on one thing: inspiration is everywhere. And to some extent that's true. But what they often neglect to say is that, although the inspiration may be in plain view, one sometimes has to dig out of a rock with an icepick. Kind of like the vein of gold on the wall of the mine. Granted there are times when one just happens upon an idea, seemingly out of the blue—like the gold nugget lying on the ground. Even then I think the phenomenon is actually the fusion of previous work and experience with one new spark, since it took all your previous efforts to get you to the place where you could recognize and use that idea.
How many times have you had a great idea that flopped when converted into fabric? If it's a good enough idea, you probably tried it again, and often that now not-so-new idea required several incarnations before it became the final product. So really the first Edison "quote," whatever the correct subject and percentages, was apropos. But I should have added another one: “Nearly every man who develops an idea works it up to the point where it looks impossible, and then gets discouraged. That's not the place to become discouraged.” Just think until you find another way.
© 2011 Jane Hardy Miller
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