Inspiron scintillations

I am a Terry Pratchett fan. I love the Discworld novels, which are latter-day comedies of manners. His fiction is of the same ilk as Douglas Adams, both of whom cast profound ideas as throw-away lines in great stories.

Terry Pratchett’s view of inspiration resonates with me:

Little particles of inspiration sleet through the universe all the time travelling through the densest matter in the same way that a neutrino passes through a candyfloss haystack, and most of them miss.

I like to call these little particles “inspirons” (not to be confused with the Dell computer of the same name!) I suspect that they are repelled by the sun as I seem to be afflicted with them in the small hours of the morning. This would certainly be in accord with the view of an American Indian tribe that believes that we all have an “hour of power” each day, which as it happens is 12 hours removed from our personal low point.

Well, we are probably all familiar with concept of the circadian rhythm and, in my case, I confess that I love a siesta – typically around 3 or 4 o’clock in the afternoon. So on the Indians’ reckoning, my hour of power should be between 3 and 4 o’clock in the morning. And so it is. It’s an awkward time, and it’s also a struggle to remember these stunning insights on awakening to a new day, but they are mostly valuable.

Other people of course find holidays a fruitful time for new ideas. So maybe the interaction with inspirons is a function of receptiveness. During the day our minds are so full that there is no room to detect that tiny scintillation of an inspiron hit; but when otherwise unoccupied, we are able to spot them.

These reflections are the result of my attempt to a categorise some of my blogs. There is no coherence to this group except that they are all the result of an interaction with an inspiron, so I like to call them “inspiron scintillations”.

They sparkled for me and I hope they sparkle for you.

Calvert Markham