“Originality is not something continuous but something intermittent—a flash of the briefest duration. One must have the time and be watchful (be attuned) to catch the flash and fix it. One must know how to preserve these scant flakes of gold sluiced out of the sand and rocks of everyday life. Originality does not come nugget-size.”
Eric Hoffer, quoted in Tom Bethell, Eric Hoffer The Longshoreman Philosopher, loc 3602
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I love Eric Hoffer! If I was a fan of emojis I would have lots of animated hearts around his name.
I think his message here is: don’t worry about having big ideas and carving out large amounts of time to write. Just keep your eye out for the glittering flakes in the stream of your day. Collect them by writing down what comes to you, before it gets washed away in the current.
Once written down you don’t need to think or try to remember these ideas. They are collected forever and you can go about your day.
One day you will put your hand in your pocket to find your accumulated flakes (in my case loads of notes on my iPhone), and see those fragments have accumulated to the weight of a blog post, a song, an article, a talk, a podcast,a book.
Or perhaps they are perfect as they are and it is nice to be reminded that you noticed and took note.
(picture: https://www.hoover.org/research/longshoreman-philosopher)
Conversations With Quotations 