The sun came out last week. First time in what feels like a million years. And upon wandering the sweet, snowdrop spangled streets of Leeds, I was reminded of something.
We wait. Like a winter bear hibernating, we wait for inspiration. We expect it to twinkle cheekily through the branches of a busy day, with a sunny smirk, and we can roll our eyes, ‘you know what Mr. Inspiration can be like’, and grab at the gods rays before they inevitably slink back behind the clouds again.
I don't like that wait. I have wasted so many days waiting for the sun in winter, sometimes, I think you have to start making the light yourself.
Inspiration is not a passive act, but an active one.
Last year, for a creative writing assignment, we were asked go out into the city, and observe three things. Write them down, write about them, that sort of thing.
It stuck with me a long time. People, lifting heavy bags from Lidl into the boot of their car, birdsong that makes you think of your childhood home, clouds passing behind the winter blanched trees.
It was like something was being replenished, as I walked around, or sat on a cold bench, or mused upon a frozen lake. Peace was filling up slowly inside me.
Noticing the world, consciously, conscientiously, that’s the inspiration. Or it's one part of a two part system, the second part is just doing.
You can't always be putting-out-there, sometimes you need to take in.
This world can make you feel like a bad person for stopping and smelling the flowers.
I find a constant catholic guilt that likes to follow, like the wafted scent of dog behind a wet hound, in capitalism’s wake. We see it everywhere. In podcast bro’s insistence that they wake up at 3am and live double the life we do, after a 9-6 you need a dropshipping side hustle, always getting your ‘money up’ on the perpetual ‘grindset’. Constantly increasing your yield, as a person, compensating for the time you take to breathe. It's everywhere, and it eviscerates any concept of peace, or breaks, or a moment for breath.
But that leaves you really down trodden, beaten up by your own mentality. And it can leave you totally and exhaustively empty.
It is human nature to pause for a moment, at the top of a mountain, sit on a crag and stretch your legs. And for the people that do have the ability to take a deep breath and observe, it could fuel you.
Constantly numb to your surroundings, busy with this and that, vaguely dissociated in the humdrum of daily life, it can feel like you are waiting indefinitely for inspiration to strike.
It can feel uncomfortable, and shameful, you might not even realise you’re avoiding taking breaks. But to outpour you need to have a full tank of fuel. And while a lot of that in the rest of your life can be friends, that refill your social battery, or watching a comfort show for emotional refreshment, I believe that creative replenishment comes from your surroundings.
That's what blossoms into creativity. The sun glinting through the blades of grass when spring is on the turn, remembering your childhood in the stretch of grass between here and there. Let yourself watch, not to consume, just to be. The world goes by. The bird sound becomes song in your chest, the gravel underfoot a beat of the drum, and the wind in the trees is the orchestra arrangement, you start hearing in your dreams. Art comes out of you as infinitely as if you are the sun.
Never stop never being perfect,
I was ill last weekend, so I didn't manage to get a post out. Like really ill. Like in bed for 3 days, moaning from pain ill. But I’m feeling smashing now! So, sorry for unreliability. Hopefully I won't be too ill to write again!
H.G. Lightly. x.
Inspiration Nation
Talking to my housemate and friend has led to a lot of inspiration this week.
Outside in the sun, on a picnic bench, I was told about her grandad, and how he lived life: ‘side quest to side quest’. Apparently, he opened a pub with his friend of ten years on a whim, and would plan each fifth, milestone, birthday, for five years. Never not planning a party sounds like a good way to live i think.
Another source of inspiration, from a slightly unconventional source. When watching Louis and the Brothel, 2003, I found a distinct kinship with one the prostitutes: a woman named Hayey. Struggling with alcoholism and running from the memory of an attempted murder suicide by her late husband, she managed to come across as uncomfortably quick and witty, and full of a destructive, but beautiful, fire. Like she had come out of ashes winged in fire. Come out of death full of life.
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