fieldus

Oliver Burkeman on stimulating the intellect | Life and style | The Guardian

But there’s another barrier to iconoclastic thinking: fear. Once you’ve jolted your brain on to a new path of thought, pursuing it further - either in your head or by acting on it - will stimulate the fear of uncertainty, failure or disapproval. I’ve often wondered if this is why many people get their best ideas in the shower, or why I get them on trains and planes - contexts where you can’t physically put an idea into practice and so, for the time being, can’t fail, either. Iconoclasts find ways to coexist with their fears, Berns says. It’s by learning that skill, and by actively seeking unfamiliar experience, that we non-iconoclasts can emulate them.