Well, who does? I mean, where do ideas come from? We can't know. The truth of the matter, I have found, is that the more I try the less capable I am. So it seems to me that ideas come of their own accord. We just need to expose ourselves to different things then wait for the "good idea" to proliferate in the darkness. (I think I'm stealing that phrase although I don't quite remember where it came from. Maybe a Carlo Rovelli book. Where did he get it? Proves a point them maybe). I think you've captured the essence of the process in that paragraph.

It may be reasonable to say that we don't even exist. That all of this firework display we call our life is just the playing out of an idea, and the ideas we get come from that idea. Like a fractal- ideas from ideas form ideas from ideas ad infinitum. Ideas within ideas like a Mandelbrot Set. Every one of them a fabrication, even ourselves. Like an infinite Russian Doll scenario. Nothing is really real, it's all a play within a play.

Sorry! bit heavy there... you caught me on a certain buzz this am.