90% of creativity is misunderstanding

90% of creativity is misunderstanding, I sometimes think. Some the best ideas come when you hear something and think, wow, that's brilliant and later it turns out that they meant something else, but it was still a good idea. I think it works because your brain had been working on something similar and seeing it in print, it makes it go click, even if it is about something else.

Douwe Osinga’s Blog: Death and Taxes. Correlated.