By Christopher Murphy CHAPTER 13The first stage — gathering raw material — is easy; and yet, as Young
points out in his book, it’s so easy it’s hard. Sagely, he states: “Gathering
raw material is not as simple as it sounds. It’s such a terrible chore that
we are constantly trying to dodge it.” In my experience, this stage is by far
the most difficult; it requires the discipline to take time out of work and
exercise the mind. Sadly, far too few enjoy exercise, and even fewer enjoy
exercising the mind. Why not buck the trend, take the plunge and give
your mind a workout?
Believe me, it will thank you for it.
All too often we bypass stage one, the raw material phase, because
we’re in a headlong rush to complete all manner of tasks at hand. Failing
to realize the importance of priming our brains with an ever-ready supply
of fuel, we leave our brains undernourished and unable to conjure up new
connections (no new fuel, no mastication). In short, we have too few jigsaw
pieces to hand, and with the same short supply of jigsaw pieces, we end up
creating the same jigsaws. Primed with a rich supply of raw material, the
process of mastication can begin.
The second stage — masticate — is an important one. Turning ideas over
in your mind, looking at them from different angles and seeking relation-
ships between them, helps you see the world and its possible connections
in new and exciting ways. As Young puts it: “What you are seeking now is
the relationship, a synthesis where everything will come together in a neat
combination like a jigsaw puzzle.”
As Young points out, the second stage can often be confused for absent-
mindedness as, lost in thought, ideas churning in your mind, you drift off.
At this point you’ll find that fragments or, as Young puts it, “partial ideas”
begin to surface. Get these down on paper, no matter how inconsequential
or absurd they may seem. The act of writing them down rewires your brain
and subtly sows the seeds for the next important phase.
The third stage — dropping everything and walking away — is often the
hardest. Pressed by deadlines, we hurriedly reach for solutions too early; a
far better approach is to allow our thoughts to gestate, to ferment a little,