Standing in the Shower, Thinking

So, this is what I want, and if any young genius is out there that can create such a thing, please get to work on it. I want some easy way to record my thoughts while I am in the shower. It could be water proof paper and pen. Or maybe a recording device built into the soap dish. Whatever. I'm not picky, just make it happen.

I'm sure you've experienced it too, you get into the shower. The hot water starts to paint your body with liquid comfort, and your mind wonders. Maybe you plan your day. Perhaps a solution to some problem will just pop into your head. If you are any sort of writer or idea's person, I'm willing to bet this where you do your best mental creativity.  

Standing in the Shower, Thinking

Most of my blog posts started in the shower, as did the ideas for my planetarium scripts back in another life. Its a great conduit for inspiration. I'm sure the idea for sliced bread came in the shower, as must have the mousetrap. Archimedes famously figured out how to tell if a suspect crown was made of pure gold or less precious materials while in the bath, which is the ancient version of the shower. The bath is just not as effective as the shower, though, and it took the bath's greatest invention, the aqueduct, to bring the shower to the masses, allowing the Roman Empire to really take off. The Dark Ages were caused when Romans fell, taking their plumbing with them. No showers, no ideas.

I'm pretty sure that's the way it happened, anyway.

But as wonderful as the shower is for the germination of ideas, it does have it's limitations. For example, most all of those wonderful ideas just go down the drain with the last of the water. It happens like this: We shower to get ready for work, or to go out for a social occasion, or to run errands. Whatever. It is a little oasis of stillness in our day, both in location and in mental state. We can't really have screen time while in the shower. No TV, computer, smartphone, social media. No bosses, employees, kids. Nothing to distract us from just THINKING. We're not even distracted with thinking itself. It's no use to try to think in the shower, because the mere act of trying to think messes the whole thing up. It has something to do with quantum mechanics and the Heisenberg Principle. 

 

 

Granddad's Little Ditty

But as soon as we step outside the shower, we get busy and distracted again. It starts as soon as we towel ourselves off. Our concentration moves to targeted goals. We make ourselves presentable: teeth, hair, deodorant, make-up, shaving, etc etc etc. Then there's picking out a wardrobe for the day. Maybe some breakfast, or you take your pills. Whatever. You're doing stuff. Already, if you remember at all that you wanted to record your ideas that came to you in the shower, you've already forgotten the subtleties and nuances. You may have “written” a few perfectly constructed phrases, or an outline of your main points with the ideal transitions. But by the time you sit down at your computer, you have at best 10% retention. Mostly by the time you check your e-mail, social media, texts, what have you, you've forgotten that you even wanted to remember something.

I've had dozens of great blog post ideas and drafts disappear because I had no way record those thoughts when the were occurring. I know the same thing happens while on long car trips, or while exercising, but what with hands free car phones and ear buds, the hit rate of great ideas during these activities are in decline for obvious reasons.

So, please, invent some way of recording ideas while in the shower. Or, better yet, come up with some way to create the same conditions that a shower offers while sitting at a desk. Of course, you know where the best place to come up with that invention is. Good luck. 

If you've had an great ideas in the shower and then forgot the details, what were they?  How do you retain these ideas?  I've set the comments options such that anybody should be able to leave a comment, not just those with Blogger accounts.