BathPost: Inspiration

Got any idea where I am? I'll give you a clue: the answer is 'in the bath'.

Yep, I'm duckying it up, though I have no ducky, typing on my iPhone 4 which is currently protected by a snap-lock waterproof sandwich bag. Whoever said waterproofing had to be expensive?

Mind you I haven't tested the waterproof quality by dropping the iPhone in the bath, and I don't intend to. Precautions are great; tempting fate is not.

I have a foam crate near the edge of the bath that I can rest things on (most commonly my iPhone, when I'm not typing on it, and coffee). For a few moments I can pretend I'm rich.

This post isn't about baths, though, nor about pretending one is rich. Nope, it's about what drove me to start iPhone writing while in the bath...

Inspiration.

Inspiration. Ah, the fickle Muse.

This, if I may say it, lovely bitch of a woman has crushed more hearts than Helen of Troy, destroyed more dreams than any Hollywood agent, proven even curiouser than Alice herself. The Muse of inspiration commands...

Well, everyone. Anyone who has ever had a dream or goal, no matter how humble, has felt the soft caress of the Muse's hand.

There's a reason she commands a capital M.

I do most of my planning, and a goodly bulk of my writing, in the bath. How undignified! How crass! How... wet!

Nonetheless the Muse seems to like visiting me when I'm naked and half-covered in water. I've no idea why and I don't, these days, argue the point. I just take advantage of the fact that when I'm soaking I tend to think of very neat ideas.

I've no doubt that my fiancée is used to me coming out of the bathroom and immediately saying, 'I just had an awesome idea...' That won't happen today, though. I doubt it will, in any case.

No, today is a bit different. I'm fuzzy from my Seroquel and rambling more than wordsmithing. I've little in the way of creative energy left as I've spent a decent portion of the day rendering pictures of two women snogging.

Nonetheless I ask myself...

Why the bath, of all places?

Here's my theory. There are various portions of the day we attribute to different mental gears. When we first get up we're still revving the engines. One could call that 'first gear' if you like, as you're already cataloguing the day's requirements and expected outcomes.

Then you actually get moving - perhaps you go to work. Second gear. You're working it now but not at your top power or speed. Third gear comes when you realise you have more to do than you thought; fourth gear comes when you're trying to get stuff done before the day's over.

Fifth gear is reserved for breakneck panic modes where you know you can't get something done but you work like buggery to get it done nonetheless.

It's usually followed by reverse. That's when you're going backward, achieving nothing and damaging yourself in the process.

But what I'm talking about isn't any of those. I'm talking about neutral gear.

Out of gear. In between modes. No-loss space.

This is the 'gear' you're in when you wait gor the elevator, sit on the toilet, relax in the bath. It's the zero-space where you're not really capable of achieving anything and so you don't expect yourself to.

Neutral gear is the stage you're in when you're being the most fair to yourself. By that I mean if you get something done, awesome. If not, no drama.

As a result it's the stage of the day, whenever it happens, that your mind is most likely to wander - mind this next bit, it's important - while it's not trying to escape anything.

That's a vital point. If your mind is trying to escape something, such as the drudgery of the day, you're still moving towards a specific goal (ie. whatever it isn't that you're doing). But when you're just floating then you're at your most receptive, your highest state of likelihood to dream up some random crap.

And sometimes it's really good crap.

So you go to have a bath. You enter neutral mode, you float (perhaps literally as well as figuratively, if your bath's big enough) and inspiration sneaks up behind you with a loofah.

At least that's my theory. Test it out at some point and let me know how it goes.