When you do physical activities that require your general attention and moderate level of alertness – your left side of the brain is put to work. Your right side becomes more free. You can then concentrate better, creativity is unhampered and you can come up with solutions that require an alternate method of problem-solving.

When you’re left side of the brain is not put to work, it muzzles the right side. When we grow up and learn what is real, not real, possible, impossible – that gets categorized and programmed in the left side. So, say you want to design an alien spaceport scene in either a game or concept art or just in your head. As you are thinking about it, whether you are aware or not, you left-side of the brain is like some snooty technical design supervisor. “Why isn’t that landing pad long enough? Where are the power generators? How can that ship fly, it doesn’t seem to have any visible engines? What are you stupid? FIX THAT!!!”

If you put Mr. Snooty Left Brain Technical Supervisor to work on something else, your right brain has free reign to do whatever it wants. Funny thing is, as I said about alternate problem-solving methods. Freeing the right brain helps there as well, as in you may not get a solution to something technical, but you may discover a different way of looking at it, (which is now me just basically repeating myself). Anyway try it out. You’ll come up with a totally wacky alien space port or you’ll find you can compose music a lot more easier.

Take a shower.

While showering, think about the problem. It becomes clearer. This is not a joke.

namuol, that is a fantastic movie.

This reminds me of a great dialog from Darren Aronofsky’s movie, “Pi”.

TRANSCRIPT:

You remember Archimedes of Syracuse? Eh?

The king asks Archimedes to determine if a present he has received is actually solid gold.

Unsolved problem at the time.

It tortures the great Greek mathematician for weeks.

Insomnia haunts him and he twists and turns in his bed for nights on end.

Finally, his equally exhausted wife,
forced to share a bed with this genius,
convinces him to take a bath, to relax.

While he’s entering the tub, he notices the bath water rise.

Displacement – a way to determine volume,
and thus a way to determine density.

Weight over volume. And thus Archimedes solves the problem.

He screams “Eureka!” and he is so overwhelmed,
he runs naked through the streets to the king’s palace to report his discovery.

Now, what is the moral of the story?

That a breakthrough will come.

Wrong! The point of the story is the wife.

Listen to your wife, she’ll give you perspective.
Meaning, you need a break.
You must take a bath or you’ll get nowhere.
There will be no order, only chaos.

Go home, Max, and you take a bath.