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Inspiration vs. Perspiration

A Light Bulb Moment on Edison's Creative Genius

By Chris Dunmire

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Last week I had a fun conversation with some generationally-advanced friends of mine about this very subject. We were discussing the typewriter. Think about how far the typewriter has come since it was invented (patented in 1714 by Britain's Henry Mill?). At first it was a big clunky piece of mechanical machinery that made editing almost impossible, and later plain cumbersome. But here we are centuries later and that keystroke type-thingy has been happily integrated into computer hardware and software where you can easily edit, cut and paste, and move entire paragraphs of text from one page to another with with a mouse and keyboard. And don't get me started on the plethora of desktop, office, and commercial printing options we have. Thank you, Mr. Johannes Gutenberg, for getting that invention going.

As I was sympathetically enjoying my friends reminisce about the nuances of typing college papers in the late 1960s — having to edit words with tiny white pieces of correction paper they had to manually stick on the page, backspace over, and retype on just to start again, I thought to myself thank goodness for product improvements. Oye! And if you needed to change or move entire paragraphs there was only one practical solution: you pulled the entire sheet of typing paper out of the contraption, crumbled it up into the wastebasket, and re-typed the page again! (You should have heard their comments about typing footnotes for research papers — frustratingly hilarious. I concluded that's what college was really about. Learning how to survive the typewriter!)

Just in my own GenXeration, typewriters have gone from electric machines to word processors with tiny screens — and now are easy-peasy to work with on the PC simply by opening up a program. I am ever so thankful — absolutely grateful — for the creative genius improvements made to this tool, for writing is more of an expressive joy than a mechanical menace for me and millions of others today.

Coming back to Edison's quote, I'd have to agree that in the realms of innovation, manifesting creative ideas after the initial zap of inspiration hits does take work. For Edison, 99% perspiration supports the many intriguing inventions his laborious life helped produce for everyone's benefit today. And with further genius from today's innovators, those ideas will be further improved for tomorrow. •

© 2007 Chris Dunmire, CoachingYourCreativity.com. All rights reserved. (2/23/07).

About the Author
Chris Dunmire is the founder of the award-winning Creativity Portal® Web site and is a Master-in-training Kaizen-Muse™ Creativity Coach who supports clients through overwhelm, procrastination, perfectionism, and other blocks to their creativity AND celebrates the joyful, expressive parts of being . . . an imaginary being! Connect with Chris to experience how creativity coaching can enrich your life.