Leona Theis

Leona Theis is a talented author who also has a brilliant, edgy blog written from the perspective of her main character.  Her most recent post is great.  Here’s a short extract that really got me thinking – I love that last line – and a link to the rest (click on any of the words in Leona’s text).

Do you know what she does? She doesn’t stay there at the keyboard. She walks away; she stops trying so hard. She’ll go for a walk or a run, or she’ll get out her bicycle and pedal along the Meewasin Trail. She doesn’t leave the house with any intention of thinking about work; no, she’s out there for the exercise; she’s out there to experience the river and the wind and the birdsong and the puddles at the curb. Here’s what happens, often as not, when she gets out there: She stumbles on the answer to whatever writing problem she was trying to solve.

This isn’t magic, and it isn’t divine intervention, it’s neuroscience. Creativity wunderkind Jonah Lehrer can be seen all over creation (pun intended) these days in support of his new book that reviews the science of how this works—how aha! moments, flashes of insight, result from the alpha wave activity that a certain part of the brain generates when the mind relaxes. Here’s the paradox: In order to think of the answer to a question, you have to stop thinking.