In his 84 years, Thomas Edison acquired a record number of 1,093 patents, created the world’s first industrial research laboratory, and was the driving force behind a number of powerful innovations. Some notable ones include the phonograph, one of the earliest motion picture cameras and his most popular work; the incandescent light bulb. The legend around Thomas Edison paints a picture of a man who engages in a brute force approach to his work. He simply keeps going until he finds answers. His tenacity is commendable and worthy of emulation, but we must understand the intuitive nature of creativity. Creative and inventive ideas require intuition, an activation of the subconscious mind; the spirit.
There is a realm of creativity and inventiveness you can operate in, if you allow your spirit to lead the conversation. Nikola Tesla once said with regards to Thomas Edison, “If he (Thomas Edison) had a needle to find in a haystack, he would not stop to reason where it was most likely to be, but would proceed at once with the feverish diligence of a bee, to examine straw after straw until he found the object of his search… Just a little theory and calculation would have saved him ninety percent of his labor”. Thomas Edison was a hard worker that embodied the idea that “genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration”. That you achieve results primarily through hard work rather than creative ideas.
Creativity is not just about working hard, it is about insights. There is no formula in “the natural” that grants insights to human beings in a way that is consistent. Things change when we make it a spiritual conversation, and reframe creativity as a spiritual endeavour. Nikola Tesla wrote, “My brain is only a receiver, in the Universe there is a core from which we obtain knowledge, strength and inspiration. I have not penetrated into the secrets of this core, but I know that it exists”. Tesla is referring to God. All intelligence comes from God; the Father of all spirits and we access it through our own spirit. Real inventions come from “somewhere” and you are better off learning how to channel the creative energy of God into this dark world. You can channel ideas directly from God and save yourself from 10,000 guesses that won’t work.
