For years now, I've noticed a pattern when I'm working on tough engineering problems: I'll work on it for some time (usually several hours) without finding an answer. Then I'll go to sleep, wake, take a shower – and in the shower the answer will suddenly come to me, often without consciously thinking about the problem at all.
I'm not the only one who finds showers are a good place to solve problems, so you can't pin this on my (uncontested) oddness...
It happened to me again this morning. Each time it happens, it feels quite odd, as though the answer just came to me out of the blue. I'm guessing that what's really happening is that my brain is working on the problem somehow in the background while I'm sleeping, and then in the shower (which serves to wake me up each morning) the answer my sleeping brain came up with bubbles up to consciousness. But that's just a guess...
These small, ultra low power computers we carry around between our ears are pretty amazing things...
I'm glad you aren't contesting your oddity. I suspect you'd lose if you did. :)
ReplyDeleteTo Simon I'd say that there is a difference between the kind of creativity a painter has and the kind of analytical processes that go into engineering. Whether mechanical, software etc. Breaking problems into steps, looking for ways to narrow down the possibilities, testing solutions. No less creative but definitely a different type of creativity. I can't seem to paint. No matter how hard I try it seems I'm trying to break it into a process that I can define (and automate I suppose if I could). It drives me crazy and so I end up giving up... for a year or two when I decide to try again. Because I would really like to have that particular type of creativity. But I suspect I will have to settle for what I have.
Larry