“This entire process which when it is happening feels uncomfortable — but you start to live it more and more…”
Sitting with your laptop researching for it. Getting there, flipping magazines for more clues, flipping books from totally unrelated topics because somehow they catch your attention… this one page in this book, author talks to you and it is what you wanted to hear, you get lost in that book for an hour totally. After you have finished, you just have a small piece of the puzzle but that's important anyhow — without which you could not have been led to the next piece. Calling people, talking, sharing to vet your idea, getting some new ideas but still a feeling of not there. Nahhh…
And then going to your bookshelf just blankly, looking at the books. Tapping your head with a healthy kind of anxiety, this voice — yes, you are there, it's coming. Books are all around you. On the floor, on the bed, on the table. Third person sees it as a mess, but you see this as one of the most incredible places to be in. You are confused at times, thoroughly amused, but still you love it. This longing and exhilaration, this mystical unknown you know you will never be able to unleash fully. Never. And that's the whole point of this questioning continuum. You start again after losing yourself, taking a nap, sleeping over the problem, feeding your muscular skeleton.
Again you go back to the books you have read years back — that book gives you a few more leads in terms of new books, new articles to read. You get exhausted in this process. You go and lie down but now your brain is totally high on this question. Ideas are everywhere. You flip magazines randomly. Magazines, books, websites, journals, your old work, from all fields. You are nerdy. Now you know all your life why such varied topics attracted you. Now it makes all sense why you called yourself a jerk when you forgot to carry your small notebook to make notes of observations all around you. Why you made an extra effort to find out booksellers which kept 50 year old classics. You never know where the dots get connected. Be open. Be foolish, be silly. Die with this curiosity, die with this hunger in you maybe… but don't stop. You juxtapose an idea from one field to the other. Nah, it's not making any sense. Then you do another one. Then you amalgamate, chunk up 2–3 ideas together in a framework. Now it makes sense. Aha. But still you are not satisfied. You look for more. Suddenly this idea pops up. Wow, you say…
This insatiable hunger is so wonderful. And then what comes out is that insight, that gem, that diamond which others missed and you got out — because you went non-linear and were fluid. You don't compromise because others were faster. You work with inner coherence, and you know when to stop as your inner coherent state tells you — this is it. Yes… There it is. It is yours. Is it liked by all? Maybe, maybe not. Does not matter.
Inquisitive. Imaginative. Ingenuity.