I’ve always been fascinated by prolific artists, whether they’re writers, visual artists, designers, or musicians. The ability to tap into an endless stream of ideas and readily produce them in great abundance, either rough or refined, is a rare and enviable gift. Those of us who work in the field of design can attest to the occasional blank feeling at the very start of a project, when the immediate surge of inspiration is most critical. The complete standstill of creative thought is like a rude visitor who drops by without warning and far overstays his visit. Even the most vigorous attempts to kick him out may prove futile.

Sometimes, the reverse phenomenon might happen: great scores of ideas rush to be born, only to be stopped cold by our internal censor, guarding the exit like a muscle-bound club bouncer. Only the “best” and most durable ideas are ever worthy of getting through. Then the challenge becomes making those ideas real — on paper, on screen, in three dimensions. But the ideas have to be crafted with utmost care. Design involves so many choices: which color? which size? which direction? which order? Today’s great decision might become tomorrow’s utter failure.

In an effort to combat this endless cycle of no ideas vs. no good ideas, I’ve decided to redirect my mental energy to more constructive endeavors (see previous post). As a start, I’m going to try real hard to post more on this site, most likely in short form (thanks to the WordPress iPhone app). I will also try to add more projects, even if they’re in progress as sketches or rough prototypes. It won’t be easy, but I think it’ll be worth it.

I tend to do a lot of thinking. Not a moment passes when cascades of thoughts aren’t flashing across my mind like channels flipping quickly on a television screen. I suppose it’s both a cause and a symptom of working in a creative field and constantly being attuned to all things visual and verbal (I was never one for kinesthetic activities like sports).

There are different patterns or types of thinking — linear, circular, random or non sequitur, among many others — but the kind that burns the most cerebral calories for me is recursive, or thinking about thinking (I’m sure there’s a more accurate term for this somewhere). To continue the television metaphor, it’s the mental equivalent of pointing a video camera at the television screen it is connected to, or placing two mirrors directly opposite one another. Images repeat to infinity, containing their own image, contained within their own image. Recursive thinking need not continue to infinity, as in an Escher print — just one or two degrees out or in from where you are is all it takes.

Recursive thinking is an attempt at objectivity, though not quite free of personal bias or perspective. Outside of any rigorous studies in philosophy, psychology and cognitive neuroscience, I find the best description of this phenomenon by Ambrose Bierce in The Devil’s Dictionary:

MIND, n. A mysterious form of matter secreted by the brain. Its chief activity consists in the endeavor to ascertain its own nature, the futility of the attempt being due to the fact that it has nothing but itself to know itself with. From the Latin mens, a fact unknown to that honest shoe-seller, who, observing that his learned competitor over the way had displayed the motto “Mens conscia recti,” emblazoned his own front with the words “Men’s, women’s and children’s conscia recti.”

Some of my favorite works of art, cinema, and literature deal with nested repetition of the same reality (also called the Droste effect):

• La Reproduction Interdite (Not to Be Reproduced), René Magritte, 1937
• The film Synecdoche, New York, written and directed by Charlie Kauffman, 2008
• The graphic novel Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth, by Chris Ware, 2000

And although this isn’t exactly recursive — unless you keep your own Earth-level consciousness in mind as the film’s perspective zooms out and in — The Powers of 10 by Charles and Ray Eames (1977) best captures the experience of shifting one’s perspective:

(best viewed in high quality)

So does anyone else out there have any personal insight into thinking about thinking, especially folks in the design field? I’d like to collect examples of how this is depicted visually and maybe share them in another post, so comments and suggestions are welcome.

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UPDATE, 1/30/10 – Here’s an interesting example of geographic recursion.