My mind jumps from subject to subject and from observation to observation.
I am told I am daydreaming or goofing off.
Sounds like he suffered from the 80-HD
It is precisely the periods of “flightiness” that “loaded the fuel” for his periods of intense productivity. I’m no Alexander Graham Belle, but my career has also been successful due to “making connections that others cannot see”. Like Belle, I constantly study many seemingly disconnected subjects, but I have ALWAYS found that some useful idea simply “pops into my head”. I have never found any specific locations to be necessary to the process. The keys are 1) to read widely and deeply, 2) drop the area from study and go do something else, then 3) an answer to a problem “just appears”.
Sounds like his mind was a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives.