Truth

We say, I will walk abroad, and the truth will take form and clearness for me. We go forth, but cannot find it. It seems as if we needed only the stillness and composed attitude of the library to seize the thought. But we come in, and are as far from it as at first. Then, in a moment, and unannounced, the truth appears. A certain wandering light appears, and is the distinction, the principle, we wanted. But the oracle comes, because we had previously laid siege to the shrine. ... So now you must labor with your brains, and now you must forbear your activity, and see what the great soul showeth.

from Intellect Essays, First Series, by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

It is a remarkable feeling puzzling through a problem or even a hook to a problem. You can think about it for days. Read about the subject to no avail. The solution cannot be reached. But you know the answer is out there. Maybe some symmetry. A question must have a satisfying answer. Answers may come to mind, but many are rejected because rthere is one correct one - one that you know will be felt in your bones.

Then, as you try to recall the specific revelation sufficiently, maybe you don't have a way to record the thought. Often it is only a feeling - but how to describe that feeling. And that feeling is the truth about an idea. But you can't share it until it forms into something clear in your mind.

You have first an instinct, then an opinion, then knowledge, as the plant has root, bud and fruit. Trust the instinct to the end though you can render no reason. It is vanity to hurry it. By trusting it to the end, it should ripen into truth, and you shall know why you believe.

Maybe this is simply "trusting your gut." But the emphasis is not on the sudden revelation, but the preparation - all the thought that went on before. The important thing is to communicate.

The most wonderful inspirations die with their subject, it has no hand to paint them to the senses.

So it is the unifying element - the thought into work or an action of some kind. He doesn't say anything about a personal truth - that for you the struggled for conclusion is an individual truth not the truth.

Another feature is that the process of thinking has nothing to do with formal education, as much as it has to do with thinking.

We are all wise.