Light bulb moments

For most people, having a good idea is a positive experience, something that produces a feeling of pride inside oneself, potentially even bringing happiness or relief over solving some until-then-intractable problem. It keeps the neurons nudged, the synapses snappy and can lead to further good ideas, perhaps even great ones, or, in some rare cases, to a coveted brilliant idea. Genius ideas should generally be left to those who know what to do with them, as several have been lost in the past due to them being produced by someone who didn't realise what they had in their minds.

In many cases, good ideas are the result of persistent and methodical thinking. Some data is loaded (or spoonfed, or rammed, depending on the context) into the brain, which can take many forms, from facts to concepts to a varied range in between, including, of course, existing ideas. This is all processed – the details are irrelevant for our purposes; suffice it to say that cogs are turned and levers pulled – and comes out the other end – a metaphorical end, I mean – in the shape of an idea. If one is lucky, it's a good one.

The other way of producing ideas, also quite common, is to bump into them, so to speak. A little cluster of neurons is stuck for some complicated reason, so the information goes down the wrong – or unintended, rather – way and some new, previously unnoticed connection is made. A fact latches onto a concept. That concept pulls in some known idea. More and more things begin to gravitate around it, until it all collapses into a single idea. A new one, in many cases. A good one, in some.

All in all, whatever the process is, having a good idea is generally perceived as something positive.

Not so for Yuri.

Now, don't get me wrong. I don't mean that Yuri doesn't have any good ideas. No, that's definitely not it, he has plenty of good ideas. More so than the average person, in fact. It isn't that he feels no pride in having good ideas either. Although he can be prone to downplaying some of his ideas, he still swells up with pride at the thought of churning out good ideas as frequently as he does. But the pain usually takes over quite quickly.

There's a common expression people use when they talk about having a good idea, I'm sure you've heard it countless times before: a light bulb moment. One minute your brain is just cruising through the data it has, itemising, organising, the next minute, DING, the light goes on and there's a new idea right there, staring right back at it. I'm not really sure about where the expression came from. I read somewhere it originated in cartoon strips, where a character would have a light bulb drawn above their head to indicate they had found a solution to whatever the day's conundrum was, but I'm not sure how accurately researched that claim was. It also makes me wonder about what people would say before light bulbs were invented. Were there candles involved? Or torches? Was it some other technological advance, maybe not even light-related? A candle sure would have been better for poor Yuri.

You see, when Yuri has a good idea – and remember, he has plenty of them – his light bulb moment is quite literal, the kind you see in the cartoons: a light bulb materialises above him. Yep, you read that right. A brand new, shiny 60-watt light bulb pops up out of nowhere, floating above his head, not plugged in to anything but still lit up somehow, and hovers there for as long as Yuri keeps those cerebrospinal fluids flowing.

Someone once said that what goes up must go down. What they probably didn't know, and the cartoons fail to mention, is that what pops up must also go down. Go away, you would think, but no. Unfortunately for Yuri, these light bulbs don't wisp out of existence as quickly as they made their way into it. Instead, they stop hovering above his head at some point – around the time the idea begins to go stale, although it's hard to pinpoint when exactly it will happen – and come crashing down on it.

Have you ever had a light bulb fall on your head from about four or five feet above it? No? I'm not surprised, neither have I. Based on Yuri's expression when it happens, though, I wouldn't recommend it. He always flinches, no matter how many times it happens, although I'm not sure how much of it is surprise and how much restrained frustration at this point, and the pain, even if only a tinge of it, is undeniable. Light bulbs aren't that heavy, you say? True, true, but they can gather up a surprising amount of speed in those few feet, and they can land on their metal base instead of the glass bulb itself. That's what happens most of the time, in fact. And when it doesn't, then Yuri is stuck having to pick out shards of glass out of his hair, which can just as easily pierce the skin on his fingers as it does his scalp. Not recommended, no sir.

There's also the scalability issue, of course. Good ideas produce light bulbs. Great ideas? Lamps. I know, right? It's crazy! Where are they even coming from? Yuri actually gave it some thought once. He didn't figure it out, but he did produce some fairly innovative ideas, with a couple of bedside lamps to attest to it. Ouch.

Scalability isn't the only problem either. Context can become problematic. As most of us, Yuri doesn't restrict his thinking to when he's sitting comfortably at his desk at home, he thinks about many things all the time, wherever he is: at work, out on the street, at the bank, when buying groceries, in the shower... I'm telling you, getting a mild electric shock while washing the soap off your armpits is no party. Once, Yuri spent twenty minutes convincing a lighting store manager that he had not in fact just toppled over one of his lamps. Only when they went through their listed inventory and couldn't find anything fitting the description of the broken lamp did they let Yuri leave.

“Yuri, my love, you're doing it again.” His wife has had to wake him up more than once in the middle of the night because of a particularly imaginative dream he was having, the glow of its corresponding light bulb waking her up.

“Mr Kah, please, this is a safety hazard.” More than one waiter has had to ask him to refrain from thinking too hard while dining.

I think you get the picture. Yes, it does sound like an interesting quirk at first, perhaps even something that could be monetised, but when the constant interference with everyday life dawns on you, you're happy not to be on the receiving end. Which is why Yuri wants out. Ideally, whatever caused this to start occurring in the first place would be reversed, but given that he has no clue about its origin, he'd be content to work around it, to protect himself from it. He's tried many things before, none of them effective: growing his hair out, helmets – the bicycle and the motorbike kinds –, umbrellas, wooden planks, boxes, he's tried staying under low ceilings, walking through low doors, running, sprinting... But inexorably, one way or another, the light bulbs and lamps somehow manage to come into direct contact with his head.

Which takes us to the present. Yuri has given up on ridding himself of this grating inconvenience, but some at first unrelated thought has recalled a fact. That fact then latched onto a concept he learned of recently, which in turn pulled in some idea he's known about for some time now. The synaptic snowball kept rolling and rolling until, finally, Yuri has found the solution to his problem, that which will rid him of this very persistent grievance of his. In fact, implementing it will be so effective that it falls under the category of a brilliant idea. I think you know where this is going.

In the Beşiktaş district of Istanbul, bordering the Bosphorus, there is a palace, the Dolmabahçe Palace. It is the largest palace in Turkey, and combines elements from a variety of architectural styles. The decoration is exquisite, from the Marmara marble and Egyptian alabaster to the many silk carpets, never forgetting what amounts to fourteen tonnes of gold gilding its ceilings. In its ceremonial hall, you can find a chandelier weighing over four and a half tonnes and containing seven hundred and fifty lamps. It's the largest Bohemian crystal chandelier in the world.

A replica of this chandelier has been floating above Yuri for the last few minutes, but he still hasn't noticed.