I have a similar experience.

I spent six years in a Canadian political party, somehow believing I was making the world a better place. In the fourth year, I started recognizing some cracks in western democracy.

In my sixth year, I came to the conclusion that nearly all of us know very little about the names on the ballots. Hence we average citizens cannot cast a wise vote. Hence, we don't get wise governance.

I thought and thought and thought about this deficiency for several weeks.

As I was going through one of my long walks, I had my eureka (and I was not naked either). Within a few minutes, many flaws of western democracy cascaded into my mind. Then I "saw" how western democracy was incapable of reforming itself. Then I saw a new system of governance that addressed all those flaws. All with five minutes.

This eureka was both crystal clear and quite jumbled. It took me years to put these ideas in written form in a somewhat coherent way. The third version of my book (2009) was when I had all the pieces finally together, 17 years after my eureka.

But two events are important:

1) Had I not joined that political party in 1986, the eureka would not have happened.

2) Had I not pondered and pondered about that big flaw of democracy, the eureka would not have happened.

Eurekas do not happen by dumb luck. There is indeed a lot of preparation beforehand.

This eureka happened on a nice day in May 1992. In Edmonton, Alberta. Walking on 81st Avenue between 99th and 97th street.

It was an amazing experience.