Inspiration is a funny thing.
Inspiration has traditionally been attributed to the spiritual or supernatural realm.
- The ancient Greeks believed that Inspiration came from the muses and the gods, Apollo and Dionysus.
- Ancient Norse also believe that inspiration came from the gods.
- In ancient Hebrew poetics, inspiration is a also divine matter.
- Romantic Poets attributed inspiration to “divine or mystical winds”.
- Marxist theory sees inspiration as an “expression of friction between economic base and economic superstructural positions”
- Freud attributed it to the inner psyche; Jung to racial memory
- Modern psychology relegates it as an entirely internal process.
- In Christianity, inspiration is a gift of the Holy Spirit.
Regardless of your beliefs, it is clear that source of inspiration remains a rather intangible concept. While most definitions of inspiration allude to an artistic expression, I think we can be inspired beyond that. Or perhaps, anything that leads to deed or word is an artistic expression.
In England, Erica and I encountered an amusing form of “artistic expression”. On the beach of a lovely Cornish town, also home to an art school, three students were, well, doing something. One was curled up in a child’s pose, I forget what the second was doing but the third was rolling around (fully clothed) in the sand, twisting his body this way and that. It looked a bit like horizontal dancing.
I’m not sure where his inspiration came from but I highly doubt it was from a very spiritual source: unless is was the Muse of Comedy because it certainly kept us in giggles the rest of the day. (Equally plausible could be that the source was the Muse of Tragedy.
When I think of inspiration, I think of that feeling of being alive and being thrilled to be alive. Of feeling connected to the world and wanting to show a reciprocal connection. Obviously we all have different ways of expressing inspiration but I think we also garner inspiration from different sources depending on our personality.
I’ve discussed this with a few friends. One gets inspiration from being around people, more specifically from relationships (Ironically, she is not an extrovert). Scott is lucky enough to draw inspiration internally: his thoughts and imagination provide the fuel his inspiration needs (maybe he’ll disagree with this but that’s what it seems like to me). Some people seem to be inspired (or uninspired) by the weather. I think I’ve got enough SAD to understand this.
I think my inspiration is more experiential: I’m inspired by experiences and my surroundings. It sounds shallow and i would much rather find it internally or in relationships. But it’s when I’m experiencing something new that I find myself feeling that “spark” within myself. And new experiences are easy to come by when you are traveling: and in that, I believe, lies the allure of traveling: that feeling of being alive and having a role in this world.
This is why I can fill a whole journal in one trip and then go a year without a single entry.
This is probably also why I feel so flat and boring when I spend a long stretch of time in a suburb. It’s probably not so much the fact that I am in a suburb as the fact that nothing ever changes and opportunities for unique experiences are limited.
So I’m curious: where do YOU think your inspiration comes from?
