Inspiration
So, this is a long one. This may, in fact, become part of my co-authored book. Which is mostly about life and whatever the hell we want it to be about. Enjoy.
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Inspiration. Have you ever noticed how strong a piece of writing can come across if you start it with a single word? I mean, think about it: “Emptiness. That’s all that was left,” who doesn’t get hooked on something like that? I’ve thought about that a couple of times, but I can’t say I’ve spent an awful lot of time on the things that inspire me. I know that things do inspire me, and I’ve always left it at that. It almost seems that if I analyze the whole thing, it somehow lessens its power. It’s like trying to figure out why you love someone-sure, you can sit there, writing and analyzing until your hand goes numb and your hand aches, but you’re not going to be able to put that feeling into words. And imagine if you did put it all down into words! It would lose its power. It would lose its impassionate glitter. I’ve felt the same way about trying to figure out what inspires me.
At the same time as I have those feelings about the exploration involved, I must admit that I am inherently a philosopher. I mean that in the truest version of the term: “a lover of knowledge.” So, yeah, inherently I question and I analyze. Some say it’s a strength, and others, a weakness. It doesn’t really matter whether it’s a strength or a weakness, though, does it? Because that’s the way I am, and I have no desire to change myself based on what other people say. Anyhow, as I sit here and analyze, I guess looking into that which inspires me is a good idea. Even though it’s not going to lead to some huge epiphany, maybe at the least you’ll be able to understand where some of this (insert insulting, self-defeating term here) comes from.
The first place to start is the most overlapping one, I suppose. You know, the general quality about me which leads to my drive, and my passion. I try to find life in everyone and everything, and see it all around me. I guess this deals a lot with beauty and my personal perception of it. Lots of people think beauty is set in stone, and that it’s objective-others hold it’s something that can only be seen by the whim of whomever looks upon… well… whatever it is they’re looking upon, I guess. I hold a sort of middle-ground with the entire thing. Regardless of that, I find beauty in places many wouldn’t. If I gave you a list of people in situations, you would tell me which held the most beauty for you. It would be different than mine, most likely, because your experiences are different than mine. Inherently, the fact that we each hold these different experiences is one of the things I find most beautiful in life.
To personify the whole “beauty” concept, though… I take it in a different direction. Someone may say that a supermodel is beautiful on a magazine cover. It may be true that she is pleasing to the eye, but she is not beautiful. At least not in that view. To me, true beauty is seeing someone run in the rain, without a care of getting wet and laughing, then coming in, soaked with makeup running. Beautiful, to me, is someone just waking up in the morning and tossing on pants in an only half-conscious attempt to get dressed. In these moments, people are their most natural. They are their most raw. I’m someone striving for the naturalistic, the passionate, and the consummate. I feel that people, in those sort of views, embody my ideal.
So everything insofar as muses go stems from the idea that, basically, I need “beauty.” What else is beautiful, though? Real human moments. Those times when I’m sitting there with a friend and not asking him “what’s up?” half-heartedly, but rather those times when I am genuinely engaged in a conversation where I’m not just waiting for my chance to talk, but I am LISTENING and RESPONDING in earnest. Innocence is beautiful-I think children find beauty everywhere and in everything. That ties directly into imagination, which I think many of us lose when we get sucked into the world of the nine-to-five. I think beauty is when you see the awe in the face of a three year old looking at a caterpillar eating a leaf (Random “Do You Know”- Do you know that there are caterpillars that eat snails? I mean, boy, that must be a race…). This sort of inspirational splendor is found in something else that I think many of us have ignored, or lost with our cynical age: truth. Since when is truth a virtue rather than a given? Since when are hurt feelings something we strive to avoid while force-feeding people bullshit? I’d rather you tell me, to my face, you hate me-or you cheated on me-or you do not love me than for you to pull the bluff card. When people are completely truthful, that brings their relationship to an entirely different level.
Have you ever had one of those conversations where it was so late, you couldn’t bother to not tell the truth anymore? Every word became a bullet. Every syllable spilled forth a judge. Every vowel was love. Love is truth, in so many ways. If you look at Christianity, who says God is Love… if God is Love and God is Truth, then Love is also Truth. Not that I’m a believer in that whole thing, but the point made there, I feel, is universal. I love those conversations where everything just pours from your mouth. Your verbosity dam just overflows, and bam… there you are. There that person is. And all that happens is real. No more masks, no more games, and no more deceit. Those conversations are what I feel so many of us strive for-a connection, true and untarnished. Sure, lots come out of those conversations that we may not “want” coming out… but we’re so damn afraid, anymore, of pain that we shelter ourselves behind a veil of self-denial. To those of you who have had such a conversation, I am happy for you… and for those of you who have not, do not fret: it shall happen.
I think persistence inspires me. Maybe it’s just that I am persistent, but I somehow doubt that as I am inspired by it in others, whether that be in my readings, or in watching movies, or in my own personal endeavors. I think about superheroes, and more specifically the X-Men of Marvel. Yeah, everyone has a favorite for different reasons. Now, Wolverine is not my favorite character, but he is the one I respect the most. He’s not the strongest, nor the smartest. He’s not the fastest, or the most feared. The thing that I love about him is that he can have the odds against him a hundred-to-one, and he’ll keep going. He realizes that you cannot lose if you refuse to give up. Every last time he is knocked down, he tells himself: “No, I refuse. Not today. It is not my time,” and he gets back up. Tell me you don’t find that inspiring?
The stories of the survivors. The stories of those who beat the odds. The Rocky Balboas, the Alice in Wonderlands… hell, even the Tony Montanas. In the face of all odds, they fight on. They defy anyone, or anything, to stop them. Let the mountains move in my way, let the rivers overflow, let an army come before me! I think the most memorable example of this would be Thermopyle, where 300 Spartans held off the advance of several thousand Persians… down to the very last man. How can I not be inspired by such bravado, confidence, and sheer willpower? No fear. No defeat. No surrender. (On an unrelated note, I broke several “writing rules” right there. Who cares, though? I understand the rules-I just choose not to follow them!) This sort of thing sends a chord down the whole of my body, into that thing that many call a soul.
Beyond those effects, there are many other things which are the source of my inspiration for writing. Obviously, personal experience is a huge thing with me. How can someone write about something they don’t know? But writing, for me, is more than that. It’s a release of my demons… but not an escape from them. No, rather, they are captured to be seen by others, and therefore weakened by collective understanding. Like I said, feeling that someone really gets you is the most rewarding feeling in the world, so feeling like someone really connects to my writing-that someone might have been moved by it, or altered by it, or even if they just thought “hey, he feels that too… I’m not alone,” then my so-called job is done. I always held I’d never write a book for the fear that it wouldn’t have this effect on people. I don’t give a damn whether my writing sells a million copies or five, if just one person has been affected by it. If one person can sense the combined hope and despair, the fusion of love and hatred behind what I do. That… that is enough. I love the writers I consider “immortals” not because of their skillful writing. There are lots of people good at writing. Even great. Someone like Rowling who can get people caught up in the plot.
Plot was never my thing. Plot always came second to my characters. Hell, people in my creative writing classes used to tilt their heads to the side and ask me what was going on-I’d say 3/4ths of the class did this. But, the other 1/4th! They… they were why I wrote on. They got it. I didn’t need to defend myself, and neither did they, because I feel that the sentiments and emotions shared through my characters in my story did it for them. That’s enough. So, I respect the immortals: people like Salinger or Williams whose plot, while respectable, isn’t the real draw. It’s the connection, and the characters. I told many of those who suggested I become a writer one simple thing: If I cannot have the effect of the immortals, then why write but for myself? We’ll see what happens. I can only hope that this isn’t all in vain!
Going right along with personal experience, quite often I’m inspired by those around me because of things happening in their lives. I hold myself to be an empath (which I don’t plan on explaining right here. If you want to know, look it up. Yeah, yeah, I’m evil. Learn to use a dictionary… or, sadly, more likely learn to use Google. Hah!), therefore the situations my friends go through affect me deeply. (Effect, affect? Ever wonder why the English language have two words that mean BASICALLY the same thing that are spelled so similarly? It’s stupid.) Sometimes, all it takes is a simple smile, or a handshake-a flirtacious wave or a blown kiss to spark an entire mental dialogue that makes its way onto paper. I feel, in writing, I can be myself even more than in conversation with people, and so I share with them every little detail that was going through my mind at the moment in writing, and it brings us somehow more to a collective understanding. Are you sensing a trend here, yet? Heheh.
Music, also, inspires me. I know lots of people out there who sit and claim that music is their life, but that’s retarded (and I am so not worried about being politically correct. So fuck you if you think so. Might want to put this down right now if you think I should be. Hell, I guess if you’re reading this, you’re probably not too worried about it anyway). Music hits me straight in the heart, though. Sometimes I can be listening to a single song, and an entire idea will come to my mind. It’s random, though. One night I was sitting out on a swing in the central area of my school, with my iPod (I sound so damn scene, don’t I? I’m not! Really! *glance glance* ) and I was listening to a song titled “Tourniquet” by Evanescence. This one song flickered forth a single scene in my mind, which led to an entire 70 page play being written in a few days. Another time, a comic idea came up from a song by A Perfect Circle. A poem from a song by The Weakerthans. A short story from Billy Joel. It could be one line, one verse, or one word, even. That’s all it takes. Even right now, as I’m typing this, I’m listening to a compilation of classical music. When I’m actually writing, I can’t listen to lyrical stuff. It’s just one of those things where the words mingle with mine and the bastard children of the two end up in the writing. Nope, don’t want that. I like my writing to be more than just inspired by something or someone, though… I like it to be real.
None of this is planned, which is another thing that gets me motivated: my best writing is all impromptu. What you are reading, right here and right now, is unedited. It’s unscripted, and unplanned. I don’t sit here and make outlines for what I’m going to do. Yeah, I had a topic, which in this case was inspiration, but I didn’t sit there and write notes on what I was going to discuss. All of this just kind of happened. That’s what makes it real. That’s what makes you real, too-those things you just kind of do, or just kind of happen. Nothing worth having is ever easy to have, but most of those OPPORTUNITES that bring those great things will be random and-dare I say it?- accidental.
I could write on and on about all of this, but I’m not going to. I don’t need to. I know you get it. I’m not sure how I know that, as I most likely don’t know you… and for all I know, you are reading this after I’m dead or some far time in the distant future. But I just know. The same way you know when you’re in love, without being able to write about it. The same way you know when something is wrong with a friend, even if they’re far away. The same way you know when something big is about to happen to you. So what are you waiting for? You can’t sit there and wait for inspiration. If it’s one thing I’ve learned about this whole thing, is that it’s about being. Not just wanting. Not just reading. Go out there and hike a trail, climb a mountain, swim in the sea, fall in love, get your heart broken- then draw, paint, write, sing about it. But live it.
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Inspiration. Have you ever noticed how strong a piece of writing can come across if you start it with a single word? I mean, think about it: “Emptiness. That’s all that was left,” who doesn’t get hooked on something like that? I’ve thought about that a couple of times, but I can’t say I’ve spent an awful lot of time on the things that inspire me. I know that things do inspire me, and I’ve always left it at that. It almost seems that if I analyze the whole thing, it somehow lessens its power. It’s like trying to figure out why you love someone-sure, you can sit there, writing and analyzing until your hand goes numb and your hand aches, but you’re not going to be able to put that feeling into words. And imagine if you did put it all down into words! It would lose its power. It would lose its impassionate glitter. I’ve felt the same way about trying to figure out what inspires me.
At the same time as I have those feelings about the exploration involved, I must admit that I am inherently a philosopher. I mean that in the truest version of the term: “a lover of knowledge.” So, yeah, inherently I question and I analyze. Some say it’s a strength, and others, a weakness. It doesn’t really matter whether it’s a strength or a weakness, though, does it? Because that’s the way I am, and I have no desire to change myself based on what other people say. Anyhow, as I sit here and analyze, I guess looking into that which inspires me is a good idea. Even though it’s not going to lead to some huge epiphany, maybe at the least you’ll be able to understand where some of this (insert insulting, self-defeating term here) comes from.
The first place to start is the most overlapping one, I suppose. You know, the general quality about me which leads to my drive, and my passion. I try to find life in everyone and everything, and see it all around me. I guess this deals a lot with beauty and my personal perception of it. Lots of people think beauty is set in stone, and that it’s objective-others hold it’s something that can only be seen by the whim of whomever looks upon… well… whatever it is they’re looking upon, I guess. I hold a sort of middle-ground with the entire thing. Regardless of that, I find beauty in places many wouldn’t. If I gave you a list of people in situations, you would tell me which held the most beauty for you. It would be different than mine, most likely, because your experiences are different than mine. Inherently, the fact that we each hold these different experiences is one of the things I find most beautiful in life.
To personify the whole “beauty” concept, though… I take it in a different direction. Someone may say that a supermodel is beautiful on a magazine cover. It may be true that she is pleasing to the eye, but she is not beautiful. At least not in that view. To me, true beauty is seeing someone run in the rain, without a care of getting wet and laughing, then coming in, soaked with makeup running. Beautiful, to me, is someone just waking up in the morning and tossing on pants in an only half-conscious attempt to get dressed. In these moments, people are their most natural. They are their most raw. I’m someone striving for the naturalistic, the passionate, and the consummate. I feel that people, in those sort of views, embody my ideal.
So everything insofar as muses go stems from the idea that, basically, I need “beauty.” What else is beautiful, though? Real human moments. Those times when I’m sitting there with a friend and not asking him “what’s up?” half-heartedly, but rather those times when I am genuinely engaged in a conversation where I’m not just waiting for my chance to talk, but I am LISTENING and RESPONDING in earnest. Innocence is beautiful-I think children find beauty everywhere and in everything. That ties directly into imagination, which I think many of us lose when we get sucked into the world of the nine-to-five. I think beauty is when you see the awe in the face of a three year old looking at a caterpillar eating a leaf (Random “Do You Know”- Do you know that there are caterpillars that eat snails? I mean, boy, that must be a race…). This sort of inspirational splendor is found in something else that I think many of us have ignored, or lost with our cynical age: truth. Since when is truth a virtue rather than a given? Since when are hurt feelings something we strive to avoid while force-feeding people bullshit? I’d rather you tell me, to my face, you hate me-or you cheated on me-or you do not love me than for you to pull the bluff card. When people are completely truthful, that brings their relationship to an entirely different level.
Have you ever had one of those conversations where it was so late, you couldn’t bother to not tell the truth anymore? Every word became a bullet. Every syllable spilled forth a judge. Every vowel was love. Love is truth, in so many ways. If you look at Christianity, who says God is Love… if God is Love and God is Truth, then Love is also Truth. Not that I’m a believer in that whole thing, but the point made there, I feel, is universal. I love those conversations where everything just pours from your mouth. Your verbosity dam just overflows, and bam… there you are. There that person is. And all that happens is real. No more masks, no more games, and no more deceit. Those conversations are what I feel so many of us strive for-a connection, true and untarnished. Sure, lots come out of those conversations that we may not “want” coming out… but we’re so damn afraid, anymore, of pain that we shelter ourselves behind a veil of self-denial. To those of you who have had such a conversation, I am happy for you… and for those of you who have not, do not fret: it shall happen.
I think persistence inspires me. Maybe it’s just that I am persistent, but I somehow doubt that as I am inspired by it in others, whether that be in my readings, or in watching movies, or in my own personal endeavors. I think about superheroes, and more specifically the X-Men of Marvel. Yeah, everyone has a favorite for different reasons. Now, Wolverine is not my favorite character, but he is the one I respect the most. He’s not the strongest, nor the smartest. He’s not the fastest, or the most feared. The thing that I love about him is that he can have the odds against him a hundred-to-one, and he’ll keep going. He realizes that you cannot lose if you refuse to give up. Every last time he is knocked down, he tells himself: “No, I refuse. Not today. It is not my time,” and he gets back up. Tell me you don’t find that inspiring?
The stories of the survivors. The stories of those who beat the odds. The Rocky Balboas, the Alice in Wonderlands… hell, even the Tony Montanas. In the face of all odds, they fight on. They defy anyone, or anything, to stop them. Let the mountains move in my way, let the rivers overflow, let an army come before me! I think the most memorable example of this would be Thermopyle, where 300 Spartans held off the advance of several thousand Persians… down to the very last man. How can I not be inspired by such bravado, confidence, and sheer willpower? No fear. No defeat. No surrender. (On an unrelated note, I broke several “writing rules” right there. Who cares, though? I understand the rules-I just choose not to follow them!) This sort of thing sends a chord down the whole of my body, into that thing that many call a soul.
Beyond those effects, there are many other things which are the source of my inspiration for writing. Obviously, personal experience is a huge thing with me. How can someone write about something they don’t know? But writing, for me, is more than that. It’s a release of my demons… but not an escape from them. No, rather, they are captured to be seen by others, and therefore weakened by collective understanding. Like I said, feeling that someone really gets you is the most rewarding feeling in the world, so feeling like someone really connects to my writing-that someone might have been moved by it, or altered by it, or even if they just thought “hey, he feels that too… I’m not alone,” then my so-called job is done. I always held I’d never write a book for the fear that it wouldn’t have this effect on people. I don’t give a damn whether my writing sells a million copies or five, if just one person has been affected by it. If one person can sense the combined hope and despair, the fusion of love and hatred behind what I do. That… that is enough. I love the writers I consider “immortals” not because of their skillful writing. There are lots of people good at writing. Even great. Someone like Rowling who can get people caught up in the plot.
Plot was never my thing. Plot always came second to my characters. Hell, people in my creative writing classes used to tilt their heads to the side and ask me what was going on-I’d say 3/4ths of the class did this. But, the other 1/4th! They… they were why I wrote on. They got it. I didn’t need to defend myself, and neither did they, because I feel that the sentiments and emotions shared through my characters in my story did it for them. That’s enough. So, I respect the immortals: people like Salinger or Williams whose plot, while respectable, isn’t the real draw. It’s the connection, and the characters. I told many of those who suggested I become a writer one simple thing: If I cannot have the effect of the immortals, then why write but for myself? We’ll see what happens. I can only hope that this isn’t all in vain!
Going right along with personal experience, quite often I’m inspired by those around me because of things happening in their lives. I hold myself to be an empath (which I don’t plan on explaining right here. If you want to know, look it up. Yeah, yeah, I’m evil. Learn to use a dictionary… or, sadly, more likely learn to use Google. Hah!), therefore the situations my friends go through affect me deeply. (Effect, affect? Ever wonder why the English language have two words that mean BASICALLY the same thing that are spelled so similarly? It’s stupid.) Sometimes, all it takes is a simple smile, or a handshake-a flirtacious wave or a blown kiss to spark an entire mental dialogue that makes its way onto paper. I feel, in writing, I can be myself even more than in conversation with people, and so I share with them every little detail that was going through my mind at the moment in writing, and it brings us somehow more to a collective understanding. Are you sensing a trend here, yet? Heheh.
Music, also, inspires me. I know lots of people out there who sit and claim that music is their life, but that’s retarded (and I am so not worried about being politically correct. So fuck you if you think so. Might want to put this down right now if you think I should be. Hell, I guess if you’re reading this, you’re probably not too worried about it anyway). Music hits me straight in the heart, though. Sometimes I can be listening to a single song, and an entire idea will come to my mind. It’s random, though. One night I was sitting out on a swing in the central area of my school, with my iPod (I sound so damn scene, don’t I? I’m not! Really! *glance glance* ) and I was listening to a song titled “Tourniquet” by Evanescence. This one song flickered forth a single scene in my mind, which led to an entire 70 page play being written in a few days. Another time, a comic idea came up from a song by A Perfect Circle. A poem from a song by The Weakerthans. A short story from Billy Joel. It could be one line, one verse, or one word, even. That’s all it takes. Even right now, as I’m typing this, I’m listening to a compilation of classical music. When I’m actually writing, I can’t listen to lyrical stuff. It’s just one of those things where the words mingle with mine and the bastard children of the two end up in the writing. Nope, don’t want that. I like my writing to be more than just inspired by something or someone, though… I like it to be real.
None of this is planned, which is another thing that gets me motivated: my best writing is all impromptu. What you are reading, right here and right now, is unedited. It’s unscripted, and unplanned. I don’t sit here and make outlines for what I’m going to do. Yeah, I had a topic, which in this case was inspiration, but I didn’t sit there and write notes on what I was going to discuss. All of this just kind of happened. That’s what makes it real. That’s what makes you real, too-those things you just kind of do, or just kind of happen. Nothing worth having is ever easy to have, but most of those OPPORTUNITES that bring those great things will be random and-dare I say it?- accidental.
I could write on and on about all of this, but I’m not going to. I don’t need to. I know you get it. I’m not sure how I know that, as I most likely don’t know you… and for all I know, you are reading this after I’m dead or some far time in the distant future. But I just know. The same way you know when you’re in love, without being able to write about it. The same way you know when something is wrong with a friend, even if they’re far away. The same way you know when something big is about to happen to you. So what are you waiting for? You can’t sit there and wait for inspiration. If it’s one thing I’ve learned about this whole thing, is that it’s about being. Not just wanting. Not just reading. Go out there and hike a trail, climb a mountain, swim in the sea, fall in love, get your heart broken- then draw, paint, write, sing about it. But live it.