Right now there’s a new book out on Shakespeare, putting forth yet another theory about how a noble man wrote all the work and that Shakespeare was just a fraud or mouth piece. These theories are nothing new, they are born out of the basic disbelief that the son of a glove maker and part-time wool smuggler could revolutionize a language and change the face of literature for all nations, especially in a world where there were so many noblemen trying and failing to do so.

Similarly, there are those who can’t buy the idea that two bicycle mechanics from Ohio and working in North Carolina could have invented the first airplane, especially when you had so many learned men ending up looking very silly, very dead or both, in their attempts.

While these theories are laughable, they have always bugged me and I was never able to put my finger on what about them bugged me until I saw an otherwise forgettable documentary on possible alien influence on the Pyramids. In it, an Egyptian archeologist was asked what he thought of the alien theories. He turned to the camera and said simply, “Why do you Westerns have such a hard time believing we did this?” The power of this question struck me, since he was right. Currently, his part of the world, known more for unrest than scientific achievement, had had a proud past and it was largely Westerners with their alien theories who were trying to explain away the achievements of Ancient Egypt.

There is a basic instinct among suits especially that everything should be predictable, derivative and formulaic. When this premise is challenged, it defends itself by either discounting the clear evidence as in the case of Shakespeare and the Wright Brothers or by creating even more outlandish reason as in the case of the Pyramids.

And what the heck does any of this have to do with advertising. Simply this, new ideas can and do come from anywhere. Unfortunately, there is an instinct to try and explain away the pure insight factor of problem solving.

Great ideas are not arrived at by a + b = c, and we as creatives have a responsibility to ourselves and the creative process to give credit to simple insights, because at the end of the day the best brief and the biggest budget, don’t mean a thing if you aren’t willing to let yourself be unpredictable and go a little crazy.

And when you do you might just discover your inner bicycle mechanic or glove maker waiting to come out.

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