What’s the best way to come up with ideas? I can happily let them mull in my mind’s saucepan till they feel right and then let them get buffeted about by the world – this is often a slow process; but there’s also pleasure in coming up with ideas collaboratively – this is a much faster process because thoughts revealed PING! off each other and a giddying sense of racing to some sort of ideas-finish-line takes over. Either way, it’s the world’s influence on the idea, rather than the idea’s influence on the world that interests me.
This week I heard about a Japanese inventor called Yoshiro Nakamatsu, who claims that by diving under water and waiting till his brain is almost starved of oxygen, he is able to access brilliant ideas in the resulting “0.5 seconds before death”. Apparently, he has invented an underwater writing pad on which to jot these nuggets down whilst they are fresh in his (presumably gasping) brain. Nakamatsu suggests that really good ideas can only come from being alone in this way (I suppose you can’t get much more “alone” than being so close to death).
Whether or not it’s true, this is a fascinating and hilariously bonkers method, but I don’t think I’ll be giving it a go! Not just for fear of drowning, but also because I think this “technique” feeds on a peculiarly romantic view about where ideas come from. It would be wonderful to think that ideas come uniquely from the self, but, as far as I can tell, engaging with the world outside is how it all really happens … perhaps for Nakamatsu it’s the forced contrast of being alone within a crowded world which focuses his mind, or perhaps he believes in the myth of the lone genius, which is a shame, as it negates the influence of all those around him.
