What is inspiration?

I’ll bet you think inspiration is important; I certainly do. I realized that I don’t have a clear understanding of what inspiration actually is. A friend has died unexpectedly, and I felt they were inspirational. And then I started to wonder why, exactly.

I don’t know.

~ Nick Cave, from The Red Hand Files, Issue 266

Of course the answer to, “do you ever get tired of writing really long answers?” is, “yes.” But there’s also a ton of “no” and “I don’t know” in Cave’s posts (all of them.) I find Cave’s willingness to simply keep answering questions to the best of his ability inspiring. “I don’t know,” and people keep asking me, and I don’t feel like I have answers, but I will keep doing the work of trying to answer.

Don’t loaf and invite inspiration; light out after it with a club, and if you don’t get it you will nonetheless get something that looks remarkably like it.

~ Jack London

I originally added this quote to my collection (the quotes I include here in 7 for Sunday are from my Little Box of Quotes) because I liked the phrase “light out after it with a club.” I have about 1,500 3×5 cards with hand-printed quotes on them. This one is number 435. When I find something interesting, somehow I always know without looking whether or not it is already in my collection. Everything in this paragraph is nuts. Do you find any of it inspirational?

The only way is to DISMISS it. “I see you, buddy. You are full of shit and I won’t listen to a word you say.”

~ Steven Pressfield, from Writing Wednesdays: How I Look At Self-Doubt

Does our sense of being inspired arise from the specifics of the example, or from the idea that we feel is being exemplified? People have highly polarized opinions of Pressfield. But is his work ethic good, or bad? Is his conceptualization of resistance helpful or harmful? I’ve read everything he’s written about writing. But I’ve not read any of his actual writing. Why do I find Pressfield inspiring?

Science fiction has the capacity to inspire by setting the vision of a radically better future, and by making it clear that the future won’t happen unless we put in the work.

~ Dan Wang

How is a quotation inspirational and why is one gobsmackingly inspirational when another isn’t? This one from Wang feels inspiring to me, but what it’s saying is obvious. I’m starting to think that quotations inspire me when they direct my attention to something I already know, or when they snap into clarity a relationship between things I already know. In Wang’s quote then, for me, I already knew the “capicity to” and “unless we put in the work” things. But together— *click* …inspiring?

Ultimately, meaning is about connections – as I explain in my new book Start Making Sense, a meaningful life is one that is deeply connected. Research has shown that some kinds of connections are especially important to leading a meaningful life.

~ Steven Heine, from How to make your life feel more meaningful

I’ll confess that at the top, I’d have said inspiration is the thing which births motivation. Now I’m thinking that inspiration is the thing which illuminates connections. Then there’s plenty of room for one’s personal tastes to color what you find inspiring. I love my inspiration with snark-icing. London’s quote above feels snarky; I find the idea of smacking inspiration with a club, thereby rendering it useless, and then dragging it back to my abode, both dark and funny.

What makes the difference between an outstandingly creative person and a less creative one is not any special power, but greater knowledge (in the form of practiced expertise) and the motivation to acquire and use it. This motivation endures for long periods, perhaps shaping and inspiring a whole lifetime.

~ Margaret A. Boden

Now here we have Boden telling us that motivation can inspire a whole creative’s lifetime. I’m only including this because it clearly involves inspiration, but doesn’t seem to help me in the least to answer my actual question about the nature of inspiration.

It occurs to me that there are some great Show Your Work! style lessons that run through a lot of these projects: […] Do it for the sake of doing it. Like all creative projects, the only guaranteed reward is the doing itself. Focus on the word “love.” Studying something you love in depth, not something you sort of like.

~ Austin Kleon, from Study something you love in depth!

I find a lot of what Kleon does to be quite inspiring. In fact, I’m currently toying with an idea, and I find Kleon’s point there both inspiring and apropos.

As I said at the top, an inspiring friend has died. As I was reflecting on that loss, it occurred to me that he had illuminated a bunch of possibilities for myself that I’d not seen before. I’m not saying that I chose any one of those possibilities to run with, or that he pointed me in a direction. I’m just saying that I saw him doing things, I thought what he was doing was inspiring, and it gave me permission (which he’d have been the first to point out I did not need from anyone) to continue doing whatever the hell I feel like doing. So if you find anything in here inspiring, I encourage you to go do whatever the hell it is you really want to be doing.

Until next time, thanks for reading.

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