Full research mode

I am in "full research mode" now with a developing science project. (See: https://plus.google.com/108986424241706680661/posts/D6DRoRKQQaH) This surely is a phenomenon common to many people in many fields of research and development. Anyway, here is a snippet of this process, for me, this time, part of the time. It is somewhat typical for me. I am: writing short bits of my budding new manuscript on a word processor; realizing I don't know what I am talking about; thinking through another key point; coming to a conclusion; coming to another conclusion in contradiction to the last conclusion; realizing that I have framed the paper in a naive fashion and delete sections (but saving all drafts just in case); starting to write a new section; realizing I don't know what I am talking about; worrying that this whole project is going nowhere new; being grouchy because if this is going nowhere then I am wasting my time; comforting myself with the thought that at least now I better understand something that I should have better understood earlier; starring at my whiteboard for several minute stretches occasionally sketching a small diagram or writing a key equation; thinking how cool this is and wondering if anyone else understands this mini- sub- topic in this much detail; realizing a new potential search term and doing a literature search for it in ADS and Google; finding my own work and feeling reassured that perhaps I am actually a reasonable scientist; finding key references that address some part of this idea that I didn't know about and feeling like an idiot; reading those papers and thinking how brilliant those authors are and how I could never write papers this good; realizing how much those authors have missed on this topic; making more small diagrams on my whiteboard and stare at them wondering how I could have been so clueless only a few minutes ago; starting to rewrite a section in the paper while being embarrassed about how naive the previous section about this was; hitting a logical conundrum and realizing that I still don't know what I am talking about; writing a small computer code to test out a small part of this idea; staring at the computer output and thinking "ohohohoh" yes that makes sense what an idiot I have been being; realizing that I am undergoing yet another "revolution of thought" and that I need to think about this whole project from yet another new angle; walking around the building thinking about this even newer approach; trying not to look in the candy machine because I don't need those empty calories; returning to my office and answering some email and checking Facebook; taking out a sheet of paper and fiddling with some math to see if this this new approach really is useful; deciding that this new approach really is useful; deriving a new equation; entering this new equation in the paper and write some preliminary text to describe it; realizing from a hole in the text that there is yet another new aspect  of this project to think about; going "ohohohoh" and make a new diagram on my white board; wondering if this whole project is converging; feeling grateful that I actually have the time just now to keep chasing this idea, even if it goes nowhere, reaching a good "contemplation point" that needs to be thought through before continuing; worrying that I am too stupid to ever solve this contemplation point; solving the contemplation point and thinking how obvious it was and what an idiot I was for not seeing its solution earlier; going home promising myself to keep thinking about this last contemplation point because it might be more complicated than I had previously suspected; wondering at home if this project is going anyplace new or interesting; not being very optimistic; agreeing with myself that if I don't go through these cycles of mistakes, understandings, and continued revolutions in my own thinking, I can never produce anything new or interesting.