Writers, check your spontaneous thought

 I would love to better understand how some creative people — Darwin and Beethoven, for example — worked “a relatively short day (four to five hours) followed by lots of long walks, afternoon naps, loads of unstructured time, and long vacations.”

That description is from Michael Pollan’s piece in Latham’s Quarterly. Pollan says that The Oxford Handbook of Spontaneous Thought has details on the routines of people who seem to catch inspiration while keeping their noses far from any grindstones. I plan to take notes.

Pollan’s article had a couple of interesting claims:

• Spontaneous thought — I’m more familiar with the term “stream of consciousness” — was known to the Victorians. But they were uncomfortable because they thought that our thoughts should be controlled. They thought that a constant inner monolog was a sign of madness.

• Around World War I, something changed in the way people viewed spontaneous thought. The stream of consciousness technique used by James Joyce and Virginia Woolf went from the fringe to mainstream. What does that say about inspiration? Does it come from without or within? From the Muses or from somewhere inside, a deep place we aren’t always aware of? Are fiction writers — especially those like Woolf and Joyce — just better at tapping into the thoughts that escape the attention of us ordinary mortals?

• Source: Michael Pollan, “An Ordinary Mind on an Ordinary Day”; Lapham’s Quarterly, June 29, 2026. The article, adapted from Pollan’s new book, A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness, is here:

https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/ordinary-mind-ordinary-day