From a comment I wrote on a previous post:

Usually what [blogging] takes is a certain kind of inspiration about the way I want to write about an event or experience that allows me to overcome some of the tedium of writing. But inspiration is hard to come by. It comes when it comes, I really can’t force it. I’ve thought on a previous occasion that I’d be willing to try a drug that made me feel inspired and creative more of the time.

I find that I am constantly seeking inspiration—most often through new experiences, places, and people. I’ve thought before that the best work environment for me would be a place ripe with problems that need solving. My brain needs lots of raw material before it starts feeling inspired. I think the reason I read blogs is because I’m looking for inspiration, looking for a bit of something my mind can chew on and possibly make into something.

About three days after Bob Moog died, the documentary about him and his eponymous synthesizer arrived via Netflix. There was a moment that stuck with me, toward the beginning, where he mused on his experience of solving problems:

When I’m thinking about how to solve a particular problem, I can think about it for days and weeks and nothing will happen and then some day when I’m cutting the grass or I’m having a hamburger or I wake up in the middle of the night the idea will be there. I think it would be egotistical of me to say “I thought of it.” What happened is I opened my mind up and the idea came through and into my head.

These ideas, I don’t have to dig up anything, sometimes I don’t even have to be thinking about them and there they are.

It’s something between discovering and witnessing.