The common perception of intuition is that it is blindingly fast, an almost instantaneous comprehension of some problem, question, or situation. In fact, definitions of intuition often describe it in precisely this way. The Concise Oxford English Dictionary says, “… the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning.” In reality, when solving complex problems, intuition can be extremely slow. Sometimes, years may pass before the needed insight suddenly emerges into conscious awareness.
While it might end in a sudden epiphany, the lyric poet Rainer Maria Rilke saw intuition as a years-long process. (Image: Wikipedia)
Rilke’s Advice to a Young Poet
In 1903, the great lyric poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote ten letters to a student seeking guidance. In the course of giving advice, Rilke reveals an attitude of patience towards garnering insights that would remain with him throughout his life. He reiterated this idea near the end of his days when, living in his lonely stone house in the Swiss countryside, he was finally able to complete his masterpiece, “The Duino Elegies,” which had been a decade in the making.
To the student he wrote:
“… I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”
Rilke was a great believer in the sudden flash of integrating insight, the moment of epiphany. He stressed that one never knew when to expect these special moments where answers to questions finally come together. Patience has its reward when, after long gestation, things suddenly fall into place.
Pascal on Great Thoughts
French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal said, “Great thoughts come from the heart.”
For Pascal, “the heart” was the whole man, with all his experience, perceptions, and intuitions. “Reason’s last step,” Pascal said, “is the recognition that there are an infinite number of things which are beyond it.” He was not calling reason into question. He was suggesting that the reasoning process, while immensely useful, has its limitations. Starting at the beginning and reasoning systematically towards the answer will not work for every problem.
For thinkers such as Pascal, the process of answering an important question begins simply with tackling the problem. As information is gathered and organized, the brain gradually recovers any relevant experience and perceptions already on board. Intuition comes into play expanding in leaps and bounds the thinker’s grasp of what he is doing. The objective is to achieve a synthesis, in the sense of combining ideas into a complex whole. However, the final synthesis often requires a crucial intuitive insight that is the cornerstone for understanding the entire situation.
Cognitive research has much to say about this process. Memory presents itself piecemeal and the relevance or utility of what has come forward may not be immediately apparent. Worse, the inevitable unwarranted assumptions we all make will block both intuitive and associative insights. Worst of all, these unwarranted assumptions can remain invisible, buried in the unconscious yet colouring our every thought and decision, continually leading us in the wrong direction. For these reasons, progress in answering complex questions can be agonizingly slow and halting. Only the most dedicated problem solvers stay with a question long enough to do it justice and achieve exceptional results by garnering that key integrative intuitive flash.
Thomas Cotterill 
I really like the concept of integrating insight. That’s exactly what I’m searching for right now in order to continue The New Serfdom. Various insights pop up as I read articles and novels, none of them consciously sought, but easily recognized for what they are. There’s no way to predict how long the process of writing a novel will take if you allow intuition to work its magic, but I think the results will be more satisfying than trying to decide in advance exactly how it will be written.
Catana, your approach to writing involves garnering deep insights into the complexities of character and the sometimes surprising nature of human relationships (as in your earlier novel, *Hidden Boundaries*). I don’t think anyone could reason their way to an understanding of something so intricate and profound. Your new novel will probably require a number of key integrative insights before you reach the level of understanding needed to put it all in words.
The insights you are getting as you read are a typical phenomenon of the creative process for an artist immersed in a project. Suddenly, everything seems somehow related to the work in hand. The world is on your wavelength.
That is so right about intuition and novel writing!
This is an excellent post, Thomas, and strikes a chord in terms of my own experience. Many, and indeed most, of the insights I have had into writing, both in general and as they relate to specific works, have come not as a result of ‘sudden flashes of insight’, but after a long, slow process of allowing various insights to come together.
I especially liked Rilke’s advice: ‘to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language.’ In writing, the journey can be every bit as important as the destination.
Lucinda, I’m reading your unusual novel, *That Scoundrel, Emile DuBois.* Did you have any kind of plan (vague or definite) for the book when you started, or did you begin on page one and wing it?
I think most writers experience learning their art and craft in just this way, Mari. From time to time, there comes a period of integration where aspects of writing that once seemed impenetrable finally open up, or after long struggle and ragged progress, the right approach to some character or portion of a book at last becomes clear. In some cases, the process can take a very long time indeed.
I’m happy you enjoyed the Rilke quote. He is a great favourite of mine.