Where do you have your epiphanies?

by Jason Preston on April 6, 2007

I have a disproportionate amount of epiphanies in my car. This is why I have a small notepad that clips to the visor where most people keep CDs, so that when I’m barreling along the highway at 65 and I discover the secret to the universe, I can hastily scratch it down for later perusal.

It’s not the safest habit, but some ideas are worth dying for, or so my country tells me. Someday I will probably die in my car either adjusting the radio, scribbling on a pad of paper, or checking out a hot woman in the next lane.

It’s weird that so many of my good ideas happen in the car though. I know some of my friends have a disproportionate number of epiphanies when sitting on the toilet. That makes sense. It’s good thinking time when you sit yourself in a room occupied only by yourself and something that’s really better not thought about.

The shower makes sense too. It’s early morning, and reality doesn’t seem so real yet. Also, if you don’t sing, then you’ve got to spend your time doing something.

Where do you have your epiphanies? I’m curious to see where people do their thinking.

  • Hillary

    I tend to have epiphanies while I’m involved in a conversation. I’ll be talking about something random that happens to trigger another thought and I’ll get sidetracked. Then I have to mention it or the thought goes away, and I end up seeming like a total space cadet…

  • phil

    Either driving or in the shower. I shower first thing in the morning so my brain is just coming up to speed… or, at least, idle… but frequently the back-burner subjects resolve themselves under running water.

    phil

  • Jason

    Hillary: I think I’ve seen you do this before. That’s kind of how I feel when people are telling stories–I have like a few second anecdote for a whole bunch of things and I just want to interrupt and say it, but this is awkward, so I rarely do.

    Phil: I feel like the brain does a lot of heavy-lifting at night when nobody’s paying any attention. The morning makes total sense. Although it probably helps if you’re a morning person ;)

  • http://teresacentric.com Teresa

    I’m a car epiphanizer as well, but I don’t write things down. This brain is like a steel trap.

    Now what were we talking about?

  • Jason

    Haha the weird thing is that I remember the most random things, and forget the important ones.