How to catch an idea

It's like remembering. It's like fishing.
#fun_skills#philosophy_of_fun#fun_report

I need an idea

I am in a creative interlude.

The last time I was in this situation, the result was that I wanted to make a homelab and host my own website. This is done to my satisfaction.

I wrote about this process in my journal. How did I set the goal in the first place? I want to do a retrospective and adjust/update the process before beginning again.

05.10.25

On the 5th of October, 2025, I’d watched David Lynch’s “The Art Life”, and wrote down his creative process. I wrote:

  • Fishing-Idea Analogy
    • Getting an idea is like fishing
    • Wanting an idea = casting a lure
    • Fish bites = WRITE IT DOWN
    • When fish is caught - other fish come as part of the school - catch fragments
    • Analogy is now puzzle - you get fragments of it - save them even though you don’t get it - one day it will make a picture
  • Intuition - Knowingness - People have different amounts of consciousness. Find where it is and get it.
  • Inspo from the world
    • Violence, suffering, hate, fear
    • Doesn’t have to be this way but it is.
    • Have all of human nature in your art, not your life.

07.10.25

A few days later, Varg Vikernes posted a “short” (now (probably) deleted - I can’t find it anymore) on YouTube about his songwriting/creativity process. This is what I wrote down:

  • Inspiration - Music isn’t created, it’s remembered. Remembered by observing our own reactions. What feels wrong and what feels right? Everything has been played before - by our forebears. There truly is nothing new, only what has been forgotten.
  • How to remember better
    • Visit vestiges of our ancestors
    • Sing their song
    • Learn their language
    • Learn to think like them
    • Dress like them
    • Think like them
    • Look at and hang out with old trees
  • You are your ancestors
    • Blood memory
    • Ancestral memory

These methods are the same

These artists use different words and different analogies to describe their creative processes, but the processes themselves have near-total overlap.

Basically you observe the world, become conscious of yourself experiencing the world, and capture the ideas that appear in your brain as a result of this observation.

Journal continues

After those two entries, there are brainstorming sessions, fragments of ideas, song lyrics, poems, tarot card readings, etc.

I’m not going to say what these early fragments/puzzle pieces were. Many were insane, a few were illegal, a couple were dangerous. I captured all of them, hoping to compile a coherent and meaningful whole.

And it worked.

And now I want to do it again

After reviewing this process, I see no need to change anything. It worked perfectly and can be easily reproduced.

  1. Journal freely - write down ALL the stupid ideas
  2. Idea sex - fuck two existing concepts together to make a magical idea baby
  3. Feel your feelings - pursue the ones that feel right and not wrong. Perform risk analysis.
  4. HAVE FUN