The Unexpected Inspirations

Unfortunately, nothing is so difficult to represent by literary means as a man thinking. A great scientist, when he was once asked how he managed to hit upon so much that was new, replied: “By keeping on thinking about it.” And indeed, it may safely be said that unexpected inspirations are produced by no other means than by the expectation of them.

To no small extent, they are a success due to character, permanent inclinations, unflagging ambition and persistent work. How boring such persistence must be! And then again, from another aspect, the solution of an intellectual problem comes about in a way not very different from what happens when a dog carrying a stick in its mouth tries to get through a narrow door: it will go on turning its head left and right until the stick slips through. We do pretty much the same, only with the difference that we do not go at it quite indiscriminately but, from experience, know more or less how it should be done. And although, of course, a head with brains in it has far more skill and experience in these turnings and twistings than an empty one, yet even for it, the slipping through comes as a surprise, is something that just suddenly happens; and one can quite distinctly perceive in oneself a faintly nonplussed feeling that one’s thoughts have created themselves instead of waiting for their originator. This nonplussed feeling refers to something that many people nowadays call intuition, whereas formerly it used also to be called inspiration, and they think they must see something suprapersonal in it, but it is only something nonpersonal, namely the affinity and kinship of the things themselves that meet inside one’s head.

Robert Musil | The Man Without Qualities.