Ideas, the fickle things that flicker off and on inside our heads, so often portrayed by the classic lightbulb over their heads in children's cartoons, are in fact very interesting.

First of all, where do they come from? You could be doing anything from studying to watching TV to running a 5 mile marathon when all of a sudden, out of nowhere, an idea will come up in your head. Whether it be the idea for a new story that'll change lives, an investment that'll make you millions, or a scientific discovery that'll make you the saviour of our planet and scream "Eureka!", that is seemingly how we most often come up with ideas. Completely and utterly randomly.

The amount of thinking we do rarely has anything to do with ideas. I personally think a lot but yet I find myself struggling whenever I have to come up with something. For the longest time I thought it was because I wasn't creative enough but as I spent more and more time with creative projects, I realized that it was more of a lack of practice than anything. The art of coming up with ideas are just the same for me as it is for them, some are just better practiced at it. And maybe, thats all creativity is.

To explain a little, usually we come up with ideas due to sudden bursts of inspiration. Now, these small moments of inspiration are random, in turn making the ideas we come up with seem random, but the source of the inspiration is not. The reason for the inspiration, the manner in which we are inspired is not random. It depends on our environment, the people around us and our mindset. The people who we usually call creative identify the source of their inspiration and try to replicate that environment most often than not and thats how they come up with their ideas.

For example, we consider being an artist as one of the most creative professions. Why is that? Well, for one, art is one of the most difficult things to do. In theory, you just pick up a brush, put some paint on it and move your hand around it a bit and voila! You have made art! That was so easy! However in reality, it really is not. Art has been around forever, even before there were kings and queens, in the cavemen ages. Even after so much time, few have truly conquered it.

What it the reason for that? There are many but in my opinion, one of the biggest ones is the struggle of the blank canvas. The struggle of coming up with things to draw. The skill of painting, like every other skill, is developed through practice. However, for the people who struggle with the blank canvas, they often shy away from painting, so they end up not getting practice and in turn not developing their skill. In this way, only the truly great artists succeed in creating true art. How? They make the blank canvas their source of inspiration. They train their minds so that the canvas itself gives them the idea for what to paint most of the time, and that makes it easier for them to paint, relatively speaking, and thus, they also get more practice and develop their skill more.

Of course, there are other reasons for it and many other sources of inspiration. Some artists may find their inspiration in other things, such as nature or even people. It need not be the same for everyone and it certainly is not. It definitely differs from person to person. What matters is that we find ours and we try and replicate it. The more ideas we come up with, the closer we get to identifying our sources of inspiration. The closer we get to identifying it, the better we can try and replicate it. The better we replicate it, the more ideas we come up with. That is, what i have decided to name, the circle of creativity. This may happen subconsciously for many already, but nothing wrong with us doing it consciously as well.

What to do with more ideas? Thats a whole another can of worms I'll write about another time. But for now, I hope this helped. These of course are only my thoughts, and have been written from my own experience only and with very little research and scientific proof, so take it with a grain of salt please.