Flashing Gleams of Light

“One should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across their mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet one dismisses without notice their thought, because it is theirs. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.”

Or, originally:

“A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

This is why you take your journaling and note writing seriously and at the same time do it without too much self censorship. That spark of insight may well come at some later moment, as the result of multiple half-thoughts connecting in new and interesting ways.

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