Inspiring Inspiration
In Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, Elizabeth Gilbert, also the author of Eat, Pray, Love, characterises ideas and inspiration as faerie-like beings who choose to cooperate with humans and create awesome things together. Being an idea, who would you choose to work with?
It’s easier to ride a horse in the direction he’s already travelling.
— Erhart Seminar Trainings (EST)
What is inspiration, anyway?
The first iteration of inspiration for this article was a fully-formed image-thoughtform-idea which wanted to be expressed, however that didn’t fit very well with the medium of words — perhaps an animation would be better for it. The second iteration was to make it like a pamphlet about inspiration with cute headings and succinct descriptions. The third was simply an impulse to start writing and see where it goes. Number four was a noticing that this story has been a draft for months now and an emotional nudge that I might like to share it at some point, which means finishing it. This iteration… well:
A Metaphor
As I was writing a former iteration of the previous paragraph, a cat began mrrowing somewhere outside my window. I finished my sentence, then became distracted by said cat: in heat, I presumed. Being unable to figure out where to go from where I was, I began to type: “There is a cat meowing outside my window.” however no sooner had I written “There” — the meow turned into a sound worthy of a cartoon ball of dust. A catfight in other words. And thus “There is …” became a metaphor for inspiration:
Your muse is not what you think it is, until you figure out what it was all along.
Unless it is — Push but don’t push
I once was inspired to write a short story called “The Quandary of the Forest” in which a man becomes lost in a forest and by virtue thereof, finds himself.
It’s naught but a page or two long and took me all of an afternoon to write. The inspiration came as a fully fledged idea, though was borne unto the page differently than I would have expected at the beginning. I only knew the essence when I started.
Inspiration asked, by its presence, if I would like to write something — back then I didn’t write regularly — and all I had to do was stand aside and let my fingers type.
I did the whole thing in a single sitting by pushing myself to keep typing but not trying to actively push the idea into being. This way the idea could be itself.
If it’s not — Flow with it anyway
This article, in contrast to my short story, has come in fits and starts. And that’s ok! I’ve been perfectly content to have it sit among the drafts awaiting the gust of inspiration to bear it aloft once more.
It’s a wonder whether it’s my decision to publish it now, or if the idea has finally reached fruition of its own. One might also ask the same of a mother and child at birth — a question just as meaningless for we are now one and the same until the cutting of the cord; that great release into beingness. Whimsicities aside, fly now and be free! :D
“I say, this has really been drama of the highest order.”
— A scientist at Jodrell Bank in the UK speaking in typically understated British fashion as they tracked Apollo 11’s descent to the Moon.
