Inspiration Strikes!

Have you ever thought about inspiration..? Why does it strike certain people and not others..?

I read an interesting bit in a book about this once - I cannot remember the actual book but I think that it was penned by Terry Pratchett, he of the discworld novels!

His theory was that inspiration and ideas ane constantly flooding the earth (or Discworld in his case) in particles, in a similar way that radiation emanates from a lump of atomic waste. In the majority of cases the inspiration particles just hit the earth - but occasionally they enter a head.

Now this is where it gets tricky - does the inspiration just randomly bounce around the skull and then either fizzle out or escape out an ear? Or does the person act on that idea grasp it understand it and use it?

However it does not stop there - the problem that we all face is understanding what to do with that idea that has just collided with our cranium. We all could get the idea how to cure cancer, or turn grass cuttings into a power source, but if we don't have the relevant knowledge to understand what to do then the idea is just wasted. It is a shame, but that cow you passed in the field on the way to work this morning could have just had an idea of breaking the speed of light!