I learned a lot from the friends I made on the South Shore for the decade I commuted to Chicago. I had a lot of time on the train to do the manual work aligning images for my various photography experiments including Synthetic Aperture/Virtual Focus[1] where I emulated a large virtual lens by taking multiple still photos from a small area and aligning in a virtual focal plane after the fact (during my commute, using Hugin, the panorama program)

Yes, having a set of free time every day in which you're not working, really helps creativity. Especially if you get to sit most days, for more than 20 minutes each way.

[1] https://www.flickr.com/photos/---mike---/albums/721777202979...