Monday, May 26, 2008

Inspiration: the elusive mistress *snort*

Inspiration:

Where can it come from?

To be honest, just about anywhere, it really depends upon your frame of mind at the time.

For instance, right now, I’m feeling pretty crappy. I’ve got a lot of decisions I need to make, none of which are fun, and am feeling a bit stuck in a place I don’t want to be stuck in. I know I have to make hard decisions that will make me feel crappy, but ultimately, will be better for me in the long run. I’ve got a headache, a tummy ache and I’m generally moody… and yet, here I am blogging about inspiration of all things!!!

Basically, inspiration can come from your hardships. That’s where I’m at right now. I’m feeling a little out of control of my life, and a little too in control of my life at the same time, if you know what I mean. I’m out of control because I can’t help but feel what I’m feeling (and I don’t like it), but I know I’m too in control because I have a decision to make that will change things… and when it’s all said and done, I will only have myself to blame if it doesn’t work out well. So here, I am, feeling like a chewed up piece of gum on a homeless guy’s shoe and yet, I’m talking about how other people can find ideas. I’m turning my bad time into, hopefully, someone else’s good time… or even an okay time would be fine with me ;)

Anyway, back to the topic at hand, because I really didn’t want to blog about how crappy of a night I’m having.

How did I decide to write this blog? That’d be inspiration right? Well, first of all, I was bound and determined to get out of my bad mood. So I thought about all the things I like to do and where I’ve found a sense of peace before. I read a book and took a bath, but the book ended—too soon for my tastes—and not necessarily on a good note. So bad mood—still there. And the book really ruined my bath, although normally they calm me down. However, the bath was probably not a good option because our house was pretty hot and no one wants to take a hot bath when they are already hot. So basically, the bath idea and book idea… yeah not good for me tonight.

However, that doesn’t mean that they will forever not work for me—it just means that tonight I’ll have to work a little bit harder to get my mind off my problems.

Next I thought about giving my mom a big hug and just letting her hold me and tell me everything will be fine, and how strong of a woman I am. (Although, yeah, inside every strong woman is a daughter who sometimes just needs a hug from her mom) But when I got out of the bath, she was asleep. No big surprise really, it was after midnight. I tried to talk to my dad, but he’d fallen asleep in the chair and wasn’t much help in his groggy state.

Okay then, what next? Well I tried to journal my feelings. Normally this brings up a whole bunch of emotional shit I don’t want to deal with, but hey, I was feeling kinda desperate and maybe I needed a little emotional kick in the pants, right? So I journaled about how I was feeling, and I totally expected shit to come out sideways, or to come upon some revelation that would make me feel better. It didn’t work. I did however, journal about how being outside helps me clear my head and how normally being near water helps as well. But the bath didn’t work and it was after midnight. So where was I supposed to go? I had no idea. I figured I needed to clear my head though, so I turned off the fan in my room and listened to the crickets outside. It was real nice at first, until an insane humming noise filled my ear. Somewhere, in my room was a mosquito. Shit, it was warm enough for them to be outside as well.

I tried swatting the mosquito but it, being a cunning fellow, clearly high evolved, stayed near the ceiling where I couldn’t easily reach it.

Giving up on the mosquito, I bundled up (even though it was warm outside, I didn’t want to be eaten alive by mosquitoes) and went outside. I looked up at the sky, but the trees here are pretty big and in order to see the sky you have to look straight up. I was getting a stiff neck (to go along with my head ache, sore tummy and tired eyes) so I laid down on the cement of the driveway and just stared at the sky. It didn’t seem to help at first, but eventually the coldness of the cement seeped through my ass, which then turned numb and in turn helped to numb the upset tummy.

I took this opportunity to think about things I could do that would help me feel better. What I needed ladies and gentleman, was inspiration.

Aha! YES! Her ranting blog does have a purpose!

And the fact that I needed inspiration led me to my own inspiration. Perhaps I would write a blog about inspiration and where to find it. I quickly pushed that idea aside and figured it’d be dumb. Then I thought that I should really look at the job section in the newspaper today since I am unhappy with my current employment situation. I figured after that, I could write my goals down and perhaps have a working outline of what I need to do to achieve my goals. Yes, that sounded much more like what I needed to do. So I went inside, grabbed the job section and opened it up. Five minutes later I closed it in frustration. I was clearly over qualified and under qualified for everything. Such is the life of a person with a Bachelor’s degree in something as unpractical as Film Production.

Job seeking made me so frustrated that writing the whole goals thing flew out the window, which left me with one more idea… get my laptop back out and see if anyone is online to chat with.

Alas, there was no one and that left me with blogging about inspiration. In reality, this blog was the best thing I could’ve done for myself right now. Sure my tummy still isn’t feeling the greatest, but I’m blogging, that is something productive. It involves writing… something I need to do more of. It is in a round about way letting me sort out some of my troubles—which is always helpful. It also could help other people.

Inspiration comes from anywhere—you simply have to know where to look, look many places, don’t dismiss anything and let life take you where it may.

You can be inspired in places like me—alone and quiet. Some people like busy places or like to people watch. Some people need to meditate and take from their dreams. Some people smoke pot or take other hallucinogenic drugs. HA! (I do not recommend that)

Basically, anyone can be inspired in any place, but inspiration isn’t enough. Even if you are really inspired it takes a little work. Also, if you are just a little inspired, it takes a lot of work, but that doesn’t make the product any less than the highly inspired one. Anything worth having takes work.

Look at me, I searched high and low for a solution today and nothing worked. What finally worked, was a solution I wasn’t too happy about… blogging about something as cliché as inspiration and how to get it. But alas, it worked out for me and if you read this far, perhaps it’ll work out for you too… because getting this far in my rant shows that you are willing to put in the little extra effort to finish something. Either that or you are really bored, but I prefer to think the former.

This is me seeking inspiration today...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thank you for your ...inspirational words on inspiration. I guess words are like pictures being painted. ..Everybody sees the painted picture differently, and out of all things, this inspired me to keep... strength. Thank you.