In slow motion

In the book "Naar man mailer" (which literally could be translating to "When you're mailing", but that would alter the pun), the Danish author Svend Aage Madsen and the Danish journalist Flemming Chr. Nielsen publish a number of mails, they have exchanged over time. Here Madsen describes how inspiration can be a mischievous phenomenon (in my translation):

I have experienced getting a first-rate idea while watching a movie on the television. Such a clear and obvious one that there was no reason to write it down. And then afterwards ... alas. Then I get the urge to look through the movie again, if it's a recording, hoping that the idea will appear again in the same place. Which it of course won't, because you are now seeking it.

I know the problem. And not only when I get a good idea, and not just in front of the television; it can be anything that flies through the brain at any point in time, just to have disappeared, when I need to use it. A classic is when at home, I stumble upon something, I want to say to someone else in the house; then I become distracted and the thought is gone. Hereafter, I can force myself to meticulously go through the same routines that occupied me when the idea arose, right down to the tiniest details, meandering through the rooms in the same as I went before, and still I simply cannot succeed rediscovering the inspiration. Possibly because it's been a combination of things, and it is not that easy to restore all the prerequisites; possibly something as trivial as because I just noticed that there was something on the radio at the time that I simply did not see as important, eventhough it was.
There is only one thing to say: write it down, write it down, write it down. And in sufficient details to afterwards remove all doubt as to what the notes mean.
(Translated from I langsom gengivelse, originally published August 3rd, 2010)