Back when Taylor Swift was a star but not the superstar whose concerts have “cheap seats” selling for $1,500, she was out shopping one day. The line “’cause darling, I'm a nightmare dressed like a daydream” popped into her mind. She wrote it down and kept on shopping.
A year later, she was writing what would become “Blank Space.” She decided to use the line she had written down the previous year. Three billion views later, it seems like it paid off.
When you look at the creative process of some of the best writers, musicians, and comedians, you often hear stories like this. They take notes the moment an idea occurs, not knowing if they might use it later.
The humorist David Sedaris once said in an interview, “Everybody’s got an eye for something. The only difference is that I carry around a notebook in my front pocket."
We're unlikely to be as funny as Sedaris or as successful as Swift, even if we carry around a notebook at all times.
Still, their example of actively paying attention could be a model for each of us.
Fr. Denny Hamm has described the Examen, a way of prayerfully reviewing one's day, as an exercise in "rummaging for God."
We may not write pop songs or essays in the New Yorker, but who knows where we might find God if we start rummaging?