Next up on the list of presuppositions that could open or close the doors to our creative field is: 

00V: We need to be ‘inspired‘ in order to create.

I’m not about to argue whether this statement is true or not. It has certainly felt true to me. I used to say it all the time— when I wasn’t in ‘the mood’ to make anything and especially if someone wanted me to make something I had zero interest in. It has felt particularly on point when I have been held in an airless work meeting room where I’m adhered to a table in a group with markers and a directive like, “Let’s get creative, people!” The only inspiration I get out of this involves opening a vein.

It won’t take much cyberdom digging to uncover how humans have long philosophized about the nature of inspiration so I’m going to leave that research up to you. You may not agree with how I characterize it below but hopefully you won’t let that limit you in discovering your own inspiration. Here I will be taking my usual broad strokes in hopes to expose any unlearning that needs to be considered.   

For the longest time I felt as though inspiration was completely out of my hands; I would just be waiting and hoping that the mood would strike me (or that I would find something in a book or on the internet). Even when I started to clue in to the external conditions that seemed to spark a creative surge and I would try to take control and replicate them, I ended up using any lack of those conditions as an excuse not to create. And when I tried taking action by doing daily exercises (thinking it was all up to me), I ended up repeating what I’d always done. I couldn’t quite sort out whether I should wait to be manhandled by unforeseen random bursts of impulses or if I needed to be the manhandler of my ideas and material. Then I realized that I was trying to grasp understanding through a lens of control and this had me barking in all sorts of pointless directions. 

Currently I like to consider creative inspiration in relation to its biological meaning of drawing in the breath: Inspiration comes from both the expansive universe (the breath in) and our chosen way of life (the breath out) that draws it out and makes it a part of our existence. It is a process of connection— to feel and receive; let it come through us and then creatively express and expand upon how we live. I don’t invent the air I breathe and I didn’t design the way I take it in—I naturally relax and allow it. I don’t need to control it and it doesn’t feel forced on me. I get to choose whether or not and how I express the impulses or ideas that I receive. If I want to be inspired, I need to get myself in a state that allows it. It’s like that old saying, “You have to become a hollow bone so that spirit can play through you.”

Writer Jeanette Winterson has also pointed out this necessity of receptivity:  

“Whether art tunnels deep under consciousness or whether it causes out of its own invention, reciprocal inventions that we then call memory, I do not know. I do know that the process of art is a series of jolts, or perhaps I mean volts, for art is an extraordinarily faithful transmitter. Our job is to keep our receiving equipment in good working order.”

This beaming pup has got that receptive vibe. (source unknown).

Throughout these articles I have been mentioning the need to become available and non-resistant for our creativity to flow. I have talked about the resistance we build through our thoughts and beliefs and the especially limiting power of judgement (is it good or bad?), comparison and expectation. To get a sense of what a receptive state looks like all we need to do is watch a toddler who is awake, face all lit up, stomping in a puddle with an unfettered curiosity about the whole world. We say that children have a limited attention span but that’s because we want them to focus on our words when their natural state is to be present in the moment with all of the senses. Who is actually more distracted, children or adults?

So how do we go about prepping our receiving equipment? 

“Dance first. Think later. It’s the natural order.” 

― SAMUEL BECKETT

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