The Mundanity of Intuition

The problem with intuition is that it can be hard to distinguish useful intimations from suggestions of what you want to happen, or are afraid might happen. Or from random frothy mental noise. It's hard to winnow truth from slop.

I've written previously ("The Subtlety of Truth") that real intuition is quiet and doesn't nag, whereas emotion and froth holler on endless repeat. "God whispers while the Devil shouts" would be the cheesy storybook version. Real intuition feels like knowing.

I just thought of another hallmark. Real intuition feels obvious.

Often have I screeched my car to a halt in front of some seemingly generic noodle shop or bakery and eagerly polled passengers "doesn't that look fantastic?" while they squinted and shrugged. They don't see it. Which bedevils me. How can they not see it?

That's how real intuition feels: remarkably mundane. Obvious. Right there in front of you.

It's so banal that it might be flowing deeply without your ever realizing. Extraordinary ability feels flatly ordinary from the inside. My sister, a natural at drawing, spent years thinking the rest of us simply don't try hard enough.

If you imagine you've come up with something mysterious and magical, that invalidates the whole thing. Real intuition doesn't feel special or strange or uncanny. It arrives as information, no different from any other. Like noticing an open window or empty coffee mug. So I'll amend my previous aphorism: Real intuition feels merely like knowing.

This observation itself is recursive. It took me 63 goddamn years to notice. Why? It was too obvious.