20.12.2019
When most in need, it is scarce. When present, however it is fleeting. One is able to feel it slipping away and finds that one's own fingers are rendered numb, too powerless to stop it.
It is elusive, stays away often too long.
Sometimes one wonders if it ever existed at all. It flees when sought after, and when ignored, it tempts. And sometimes one sits up and takes notice, and feels realization dawn, only to find that what one thought it was wasn't it at all.
One's memory of it cannot be relied upon as the sensations are always brief but enormous. Like a pebble dropped in the centre of a pond, casting ripples everywhere. The intensity of each ripple is a wonder of nature; so tangible yet so profound that the pebble is forgotten. Similarly, one is so caught up with the ideas that are thrown up that one forgets the beginning sensations of inspiration.
When walking on well known roads, you often pause to glance at the people nearby, feeling a stirring sense of recognition even if you haven't seen them before. It's the ambience you are in. The knowledge that you are in one of your favourite haunts, a familiar place. Then you look around, expecting to encounter someone you know.
This is what you hope to feel when searching for inspiration.
Reality, of course, couldn't be more different. The quest for inspiration is demanding to say the least. It is an insatiable desire to conquer a land for the rogue and unmanageable words that play havoc in your head. It is a visceral need to prepare a ground for the seething, volcanic flow of words and emotions that are alternatively fuming and crackling in the too- small crevice of your brain.
And quite like the unattainable lady of yore, this formless, faithless phenomenon is more often admired and aspired to, rather than attained. It is the misfortune of the human mind to want to try again. And again. And again. To tread those familiar paths of misplaced confidence, to consort with impatience and absentmindedness, to seek solace in the desperate haze of sleeplessness; only to crash creatively drained in front of a dead end. And don't forget that the perpetual words are still unborn, still waging wars inside your throbbing head. One certainly must be mad to go through this arduous process once, I think. But to go through it again and again? Sheer insanity.
And yet I do it. And those times I don't, or am between quests, I float in an idyllic fantasy where I am perched on a table, pen and paper in hand; and Inspiration comes bearing Creative Expression and Inexhaustible Penmanship on each shoulder, and all my words walk meekly out of my head in single file and press themselves down on my paper. And voila! Creatively Inspired Pieces of Writing!
But like real inspiration, these dreams too are short lived. I wake up with a burst of energy, all to ready to hunt for and conquer the elusive Inspiration, armed with foolish pride and idealistic hope, having already thrown away common sense like a piece of uninspired writing. And there the cycle begins again.
Therefore to conclude, I shall address directly, the cause of this fruitless search and my subsequent despondent state: Inspiration, thou art a perverse being. I hereby state that I wash my hands of you and if you think all this is a game, then you are one player short, from today. Farewell, my old tormentor and onetime friend.
. . .
(Now that I've said all this: all but stated right out that I've given up; maybe just maybe, will Inspiration come at last?)
When most in need, it is scarce. When present, however it is fleeting. One is able to feel it slipping away and finds that one's own fingers are rendered numb, too powerless to stop it.
It is elusive, stays away often too long.
Sometimes one wonders if it ever existed at all. It flees when sought after, and when ignored, it tempts. And sometimes one sits up and takes notice, and feels realization dawn, only to find that what one thought it was wasn't it at all.
One's memory of it cannot be relied upon as the sensations are always brief but enormous. Like a pebble dropped in the centre of a pond, casting ripples everywhere. The intensity of each ripple is a wonder of nature; so tangible yet so profound that the pebble is forgotten. Similarly, one is so caught up with the ideas that are thrown up that one forgets the beginning sensations of inspiration.
When walking on well known roads, you often pause to glance at the people nearby, feeling a stirring sense of recognition even if you haven't seen them before. It's the ambience you are in. The knowledge that you are in one of your favourite haunts, a familiar place. Then you look around, expecting to encounter someone you know.
This is what you hope to feel when searching for inspiration.
Reality, of course, couldn't be more different. The quest for inspiration is demanding to say the least. It is an insatiable desire to conquer a land for the rogue and unmanageable words that play havoc in your head. It is a visceral need to prepare a ground for the seething, volcanic flow of words and emotions that are alternatively fuming and crackling in the too- small crevice of your brain.
And quite like the unattainable lady of yore, this formless, faithless phenomenon is more often admired and aspired to, rather than attained. It is the misfortune of the human mind to want to try again. And again. And again. To tread those familiar paths of misplaced confidence, to consort with impatience and absentmindedness, to seek solace in the desperate haze of sleeplessness; only to crash creatively drained in front of a dead end. And don't forget that the perpetual words are still unborn, still waging wars inside your throbbing head. One certainly must be mad to go through this arduous process once, I think. But to go through it again and again? Sheer insanity.
And yet I do it. And those times I don't, or am between quests, I float in an idyllic fantasy where I am perched on a table, pen and paper in hand; and Inspiration comes bearing Creative Expression and Inexhaustible Penmanship on each shoulder, and all my words walk meekly out of my head in single file and press themselves down on my paper. And voila! Creatively Inspired Pieces of Writing!
But like real inspiration, these dreams too are short lived. I wake up with a burst of energy, all to ready to hunt for and conquer the elusive Inspiration, armed with foolish pride and idealistic hope, having already thrown away common sense like a piece of uninspired writing. And there the cycle begins again.
Therefore to conclude, I shall address directly, the cause of this fruitless search and my subsequent despondent state: Inspiration, thou art a perverse being. I hereby state that I wash my hands of you and if you think all this is a game, then you are one player short, from today. Farewell, my old tormentor and onetime friend.
. . .
(Now that I've said all this: all but stated right out that I've given up; maybe just maybe, will Inspiration come at last?)
I adore this, it's written so beautifully but it's concise and I enjoyed reading it. Love the analogies and metaphors, this is so well written I can't even begin to explain how cool this piece is and I'd love to read more!!
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