As Mr. Strong noted above, very often it is long periods of hard and often tedious work that lead to the state of grace where our finest efforts often emerge. Nonetheless, one should not totally discard the Zen perspective, for there is wisdom even within its obfuscation.

A goal of zazen (and Zen itself) is the recovery of the Beginner's Mind once one has achieved expertise. The beginner sees endless possibilities; the expert sees few. Grasping the relaxed and unlimited approach of the Beginner, with the base of experience and practice required to turn out an Expert, frees one to break new ground and perform with mastery.

Does it always work that way? Hell no. But it's surprising how often the refrain of "I turned my back on the problem, and it just came to me", or "I didn't think about it anymore, I just did it", appears next to accounts of new ground being broken, in academia and in athletics.

Either there is a hell of a lot of confirmation bias going around, or this happens fairly often.

Much wisdom in this short post, Art. I read the perfectionsim article and had a similar self-reflection reaction to it. I like your observations and the Zen allusion. Rather than looking for "transcendant" moments, we should sometimes revel in the processional simplicity of efforts that nevertheless yield seemingly complex results. These experiences are often based on what seemed to be effortless but focused activities. One way of looking at it is that we performed "within ourself." Another way is that we weren't so obsessed with the outcome but rather let the activity itself be the goal.

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