7.Take a break.
The value of incubation is touted in most theories of the creative process. Often cited is the observation by Poincaré that “sudden illumination” is “a manifest sign of long, unconscious prior work” and that it appears only “after some days of voluntary effort which has appeared absolutely fruitless.”199 He recommends taking a break to facilitate this process. Crick, who shared the Nobel Prize with his coworker Watson for deciphering the form of DNA, credits incubation as a major key to their success:
Neither Jim nor I felt any external pressure to get on with the problem. This meant we could approach it intensively for a period and then leave it alone for a bit.200
When Bertrand Russell tried to “push his creative work by sheer force of will, he discovered the necessity of waiting for it to find its own subconscious development.”201 Jonathan Young (2006) says that such forcing often results in a creative block.
Also common are reports of illuminative dreams. Kekulé, stumped about the structure of the benzene ring, fell asleep in exhaustion and dreamt of a snake swallowing its tail. Elias Howe solved the problem of the sewing machine needle when he dreamt of savages chasing him, their spears punctured with holes in the ends. Dmitry Mendeleyev dreamt the placement of elements in the periodic table. In 1963 Otto Loewi won the Nobel Prize for an experiment told him in a dream. He had to repeat the dream the next night because his notes from the first night were indecipherable!202 In each case the dreamer was actively engaged in solving a problem and fell asleep, stymied, after “voluntary effort” that had seemed “fruitless.”
Harpist Derek Bell, when asked how to court inspiration, replied in an interview,
Buddha gave the correct answer to this question in my opinion. He said if you want to know anything, humbly sit down and ask the great void. Ask for help, ask for what you need, and maybe next morning, when the morning light comes in, something will be given to you if you are fit to have it . . . The less you are thinking about it, the better it comes.203
8.Watch for synchronicity to help you.
Synchronicity is the message from the universe that you are not alone, that there are forces waiting to help you if you are focused enough, full of concentration and will power, engaged in a task that will benefit the whole. Synchronicity, as defined by Jung, is a meaningful coincidence: “‘the simultaneous occurrence of two meaningfully but not causally connected events’; or alternatively as ‘a coincidence in time of two or more causally unrelated events.’” Combs and Holland call such events
. . . the uncanny intrusion of the unexpected into the flow of commonplace happenstance, an intrusion that hints at an undisclosed realm of meaning, a disparate landscape of reality that momentarily intersects with our own.204
They add that, according to Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers, when you follow your bliss, “there is often a sense of ‘hidden hands,’ of unexpected opportunities and unanticipated resources.”205 Sometimes they seem to be arranged by a trickster with a sense of humor,206 such as the episode narrated by Shirley MacLaine in Out on a Limb when she entered a book store and the book she needed fell on her head. When we are cooperating with a greater energy, there exists “an attitude of synergy by which a state of cooperation exists between the individual and the world.”207 Look for such opportunities, and make use of them.
9.Try it out in the material world.
Take your project to someone you trust and ask for feedback. Try to get your ego out of the way and listen, dispassionately, for ways your work can be improved.
Lennon and McCartney did most of their best composing together. Sir Paul often discusses how they used each other as sounding boards, how his romantic tone was toughened by his partner’s sardonic irony. A favorite example of his is quoted by Barry Miles: “I was sitting there doing ‘Getting better all the time’ and John just says in his laconic way, ‘It couldn’t get no worse.’”208 Crick makes it clear that he and Watson cooperated in studying the double helix: “If either of us suggested a new idea the other, while taking it seriously, would attempt to demolish it in a candid but nonhostile manner. This turned out to be quite crucial.”209 Like Lennon and McCartney during their great creative period, the DNA team all but lived together:
Over a period of almost two years, we often discussed the problem, either in the laboratory or on our daily lunchtime walk . . . or at home, since Jim occasionally dropped in near dinnertime, with a hungry look in his eye. Sometimes, when the summer weather was particularly tempting, we would take the afternoon off and punt up the river.210
They also “tried it out” by building models. (See Chapter 7 for the value of creative pairs.)
Ghiselin advises that our first response to our work may not be an accurate measure of its quality:
A work may seem valuable to its creator because of his sense of stirring life and fresh significance while he was producing it. After that excitement is dissipated, its intrinsic value is its only relevant one even to himself. He must find out if it will serve to organize experience in a fresh and full and useful way. To that end he tests it critically.211
In other words, the work must be valuable as well as novel. A sympathetic critic can help.
10.Make adjustments.
Despite the example of Kriyananda, few works are created whole in a single burst of inspiration. The development of the fax machine began with a patent in 1843. The technology engaged Edison for a while and utilized the telegraph infrastructure for many years because AT&T, a monopoly, wasn’t interested. Widespread use of the fax couldn’t occur until deregulation of the telephone industry.212 The search to discover longitude spanned many years and engaged many seekers. Walt Whitman spent his period of creative maturity rewriting Leaves of Grass.
Edgar Cayce stresses “patience” as one of the three dimensions in which The Divine works: “Time, Space, Patience!” (262-114). Ghiselin says, “Among the conditions to which every inventor must submit is the necessity for patience. The development desired may have to be waited for, even though its character may be clearly intimated.”213 When you’ve taken a break and received feedback, make the necessary adjustments and begin again—either on this project or on another. You may have to wait if the time is not yet right. The bikini was invented in 1946 but didn’t enter the mainstream until the freewheeling 1960s!214
Conclusion
Repeat all steps as often as needed. This method is recursive, and at any time you may need to return to an earlier step while you are working on a later one. (Admittedly, such persistence is difficult to accomplish in today’s hurry-up world.)
Rollo May says that creation takes courage,
But if you do not express your own original ideas, if you do not listen to your own being, you will have betrayed yourself. Also you will have betrayed our community in failing to make your contribution to the whole.
A chief characteristic of this courage is that it requires a centeredness within our own being, without which we would feel ourselves to be a vacuum.215
Swami Kriyananda often quotes Paramhansa Yogananda’s dictum that the