The words of Russian born modernist Kazimir Malevich ring through the halls of the Museum of Modern Art: "It cannot be stressed too often that absolute, true values arise only from artistic, subconscious or superconscious creation."

How often we listen in awe to stories of inspiration, a force beyond and more potent than the creator. The writer, the artist, the scientist are at times both enslaved by and master of not just the reality of inspiration but the myths that surround it. The arts of the intellect almost require a belief in something more than what reality offers. "Skill," we reason, is not enough to provide for the creation of a masterpiece. There must also be the ever-popular "talent" and the mysterious and elusive "inspiration."

Clinical psychology has proven the existence of altered states of reality -- something to which any absinthe fanatic or even moderately interesting poet would readily attest. What science has not shown is how or if it is possible to harness inspiration. And what would such a world be?

The second element in Malevich's equation, truth, presents an even deeper problem. For his formula implies that we believe that the worker whose production is regulated and analogous does not labor under the mantle of "inspiration" and therefore cannot experience nor hope to transmit "truth." This, of course, is an idea we find impossible; it is an idea we know to be untrue. And what is truth? Certainly, truth is not unique, nor, in an ideal world, open to interpretation. Yet we hold that every occurrence -- and every product -- of inspiration is unique. We may write or construct the result of an inspired moment, but we cannot give another person inspiration; we cannot insist that one idea is better than another any more successfully than we can argue that one experience is ultimately better than another. It is a matter of individual perception. Or is it? Are our dreams, impressions, and subconscious lives but players in a shared, albeit hidden, reality?

Different cultures seldom agree on what music is good or bad, but they universally agree on what is better or worse. Mozart will always best Marilyn Manson. Similarly, cultures are patterned to accept different standards of justice, but it is agreed that the taking of an innocent human life is morally wrong. This species-wide consensus may be expressed most perfectly in an individual moment of enlightenment when the patterns which underlie life become apparent and tangible.

History teaches of a few self actualized individuals who commanded performances of inspiration. More common, however, are those who have trained themselves not to control the frequency of their lightning strikes, but the ways in which they react to the power of the moment. The reaction may, over time, be entwined with all ideas at all times -- essentially tricking the observer into seeing a coherent picture of continuous inspiration or enlightenment or, more rarely, genius. Creative writing teachers readily observe in their students' manuscripts when the writer is "on" -- when, during creation, the individual harnessed the power of subconscious perception. Later in our careers, we train ourselves to work, if not always profitably or well, then consistently. It is a training that enables us to wait patiently for a more constructive mood. Who would propose that Edison spent his productive years in a state of perpetual enlightenment? But who would refute that the most productive moments of his long career --

moments which would lead to great developments -- were the products of inspiration? To do so would be to deny the sub- and super- consciousness that makes us human.

It has been observed that the test of consciousness is whether or not a creature can recognize itself in a mirror. The study of psychology on micro and macro levels is the ultimate catechism for that mirror. But in thinking of ourselves do we change ourselves, always staying a step ahead of our theoretical shared identity? Can we ever come to understand the unity of the world mind? Can we find a way to unite our forms of consciousness permanently, or at least on demand? Moreover, is such a result desirable? And if ever we attain the gift of perfect insight, will it, like so many Utopias, turn out to be a madhouse of self-deception and irrelevant values?

For what use is the writer, the artist, the physicist who sent us in search of self-discovery with the product of a moment of inspiration -- the ultimate statement of Malevich's artistic truth -- in a world where everyone at all times is aware?

Perhaps this is a riddle best left unsolved, a room of mirrors from which beauty and truth are reflected only when we peep through the keyhole.