Where do you get your ideas from? - posted from under the Queensboro Bridge

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This question drove a man insane. Read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

Personally I think it's pretty clear cut: the attentive mind gathers information from outside itself, and the resting mind examines that information and draws connections or comparisons between the information that has been gathered, and this process gives rise to what appear to be new, a priori ideas, but are really just the product of prior knowledge and work. Much like one would go out into the world to gather rocks and sticks and feathers and hemp before returning to shelter to fletch an arrow; the arrow didn't exist outside of the shelter, but it didn't come from nowhere either; it's the product of things that came before, and the work of manipulating and combining those things into something useful or meaningful or pleasing.
 
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Are you trying to be philosophical? Or is just a casual question?

If it's the former, that would be from the information that's acquired and processed in your brain (through the senses, modelled in your memory, and transformed in a million different ways by a lot of factors).

If it's the latter, it will depend on the purpose and type of "creation" I want to make. If it's a drawing, maybe I'll go see references of the particular style (like gothic architecture), or imagine them myself without any reference. If I want to write a story, or make something on the computer, then I brainstorm ideas (which can be changed later on), and those ideas come from everything that I am at that point in time.
 
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