The creative process isn't an efficient one.
"Only after nature, in her promiscuous creativity, throws up countless new possibilities and combinations does natural selection (her critical impulse, if you will) step in to determine which work best under the circumstances. This colossally wasteful and extravagant process is what makes possible the beauty of the rose, which far exceeds any possible utility -- much more modest flowers attract bumblebees equally well. Nature creates without an end in view; fitness is but an afterthought. The gardener, in his own little world, like the artist in his, performs both functions, hatching the trials and then culling the errors."
- from Second Nature by Michael Pollan
