Yesterday, for lack of inspiration, I gave myself a challenge.  I set a timer and an intention.  I had to write something within 5 minutes.  That was it.  I figure my line of thinking had something to do with setting a deadline because that usually creates results, right?  Just the stress of having to get something done by a certain time pretty much guarantees that it will happen.  Let’s just accept that as fact for the sake of discussion…

When I came up with my challenge, I hadn’t thought it through and that’s probably a good thing because I might have ended up in “analysis paralysis”.  I think I simply took it for granted that my challenge involved a task.  Meanwhile though, I expected it to generate inspiration.  But what exactly does that mean?  Obviously I was confused but I’m happy I published my “bullshit” because you guys piped in with some great comments that got me to thinking…  Oh oh!!

Sonya said that it’s difficult to put a timeline on inspiration.  And then Sue added that perhaps I was inspired to bullshit for five minutes.  Now that’s all led me to wonder what exactly did I mean by “inspiration”?  What is inspiration exactly?  Yep, all day I’ve been ruminating on that one, in the background, and I’ve come to the conclusion that inspiration is as simple as an idea. Well that conclusion got me all excited because my original intention yesterday was to be inspired and I thought that if I put some pressure on, the inspiration would come.  Little did I know that the actual pressure tactic I came up with was the actual inspiration.  If inspiration is an idea and my idea was to give myself a five-minute challenge, that right there was my inspiration.  After all, does inspiration imply some great big bolt of lightening striking you down from above to make sure you get the message?  Is inspiration some deafening voice in your head that says, “Yoohooo, hellooooooo, this is inspiration coming in…step aside and let it flow!!!”.

I think that inspiration is much more subtle than that.  It’s an idea that pops into your head and if you’re paying attention, you’ll notice it.  Or it’s a feeling to go this way or that way when you were in the middle of going the other way.  It’s that thing we refer to as a “gut feeling” or those things we do out of the blue and then wonder what possessed us suddenly.  So what I was thinking about today is that we have possibly taken a word that is meant to be simple and we’ve assigned it great meaning.  Inspiration, it sounds so ominous, like something that is possessed by a chosen few and the rest of us spend our lives longing for.  Meanwhile, everyone of us is inspired every day, all day long.  When I get up in the morning, an idea immediately pops into my head…I am “inspired” to go to the bathroom.  I’m sure some people would call it an urge but I’m really liking the idea of calling it an inspiration.  It makes me feel creative and that’s a feeling I like. 

Imagine though, you’re in the kitchen cooking up a fiesta and suddenly you get an idea to stray from your usual recipe and add a spice you’ve never used before.  So you follow through on your idea and your dish ends up being divine, all because of a spice that you added that was never in the recipe.  It came to you as an idea but would you not call that inspiration?  Inspiration is simple and here I was making it out to be a great big thing.  If you’re writing a book, you don’t write the entire book all at once, you write it a word at a time, a sentence at a time.  So you come up with an idea for a story, that would be inspiration.  Then you sit down to write and you just can’t get that first sentence.  Why?  Because you’re thinking too hard now that you’re all excited by the inspiration you had to write a book.  Finally you get up and go for a walk and when you’re not thinking about it, that first sentence comes.  Again, an idea pops into your head…inspiration!

There, that’s what I came up with today…inspiration is merely an idea or a feeling or an urge that pops up when you’re not thinking about it.  And if you follow that feeling or follow through on the idea, another one will come and so on until you’ve written that book or created that new thing or that masterpiece or whatever.  What do you think?

Thank you for all your feedback and comments.  You inspired me and I really appreciate it!  :)

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!!

Kharim