When you encounter ideas that you don't understand but feel important, take that as a clue and keep them.

Instead of cataloguing what you understood, start collecting what you didn’t.

Incubation and insight theory posits that the brain can shift to diffuse processing with a sudden "a-ha."

Discovery happens when different ideas blend and merge.

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”—Marcel Proust

Have you ever read something and not understood it, yet felt that something important was written there?

This happened to me recently when I was reading Thoughts Without a Thinker by Mark Epstein, a Buddhist and Freudian psychoanalyst who helped bridge these two disciplines of mind.

The title alone is provocative. When Epstein began explaining the deeper meaning behind it, I had a sense that it went over my head.

I followed the logic. Clinging to the ego and desire is the source of suffering. If we can loosen our attachment to the self—and separate the thinker from the thoughts—perhaps we can achieve greater equanimity and peace.

Thoughts were simply thoughts.

That sounds profound, but I can’t say that I fully understood it.

Moments like this are common when we encounter ideas that stretch beyond our current mental framework. We can follow the words and the logic, yet still feel that the deeper meaning is just out of reach.

So what should we do then?My proposal is this: Hold it. Park it.

Instead of cataloguing what you understood, start collecting what you didn’t.

This is not what my younger self would have done.

More often than not I would simply gloss over the passage and move on. By the time I finished the book or article, I had a summary of what I understood. The essence of the book was stored in my brain bank, but what I didn’t understand had quietly disappeared.

But there is something meaningful about encountering an idea you don’t fully understand that nonetheless feels important.

That feeling is a hint.

Something in the idea is striking you. It is triggering a resonance, even if you cannot yet articulate why.

Writing it down in a journal may help. But don’t simply let it go. Don’t let it slip away just because the present version of you does not yet understand it.

Perhaps one day, after more experience and a bit more wisdom, lightning will strike and the meaning will suddenly become clear.

Psychologists sometimes call this incubation, the process by which ideas we cannot yet grasp continue to work quietly in the background of the mind. Neuroscientists studying insight have found that the brain often continues working on problems outside of conscious awareness, sometimes producing a sudden “Aha!” moment when distant ideas finally connect. Experiments showed that the right temporal brain is active and high-frequency gamma wave bursts appear before such a moment.

Perhaps one day, several ideas sitting in your mental mystery catalogue will suddenly connect.

Interestingly, some of the most influential discoveries in science occur when ideas from different disciplines collide, rather than when a single field digs deeper into its own silo.

Multiple explanations have been given for this phenomenon: different fields frame problems differently and an innovative solution may materialize, or tools from one field may unlock questions in another.

Something similar may happen in our own minds.

When we resist the urge to discard what we don’t understand, we allow ideas to remain in conversation with one another. Over time, those unexpected connections may produce insight.

Sometimes the most important ideas are the ones we aren’t ready to understand—yet.

Epstein, M. (1995). Thoughts Without a Thinker: Psychotherapy from a Buddhist perspective. New York: Basic Books.

Sio, U. N., & Ormerod, T. C. (2009). Does incubation enhance problem solving? A meta-analytic review. Psychological Bulletin, 135(1), 94–120.

Jung-Beeman M, Bowden EM, Haberman J, Frymiare JL, Arambel-Liu S, Greenblatt R, et al. (2004) Neural Activity When People Solve Verbal Problems with Insight. PLoS Biol 2(4): e97. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.0020097

Uzzi, B., Mukherjee, S., Stringer, M., & Jones, B. (2013) in Science: “Atypical Combinations and Scientific Impact.”

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