The Way of Inspiration

“Surround yourself with people who inspire you.” – Unknown, but must have been an artist.

Last month I had joined an online writers group to discuss Buddhism. As we discussed our various perspectives someone asked how much I write everyday. Hmmm. I wondered, not out loud, why we place such importance on the amount of time = some applied value? As though the amount of time spent equals worth and dedication.

But it doesn’t. Some things drop in at the strangest moments and end up as notes on scraps of paper or recordings. Insights and thoughts rise in the stream unbidden and uncalled for, and if I’m not paying attention inspiration flows by unnoticed.

I sit at the workstation a minimum or three hours a day five days a week when physically possible. It’s an arbitrary amount of time, set after I read Steven Pressfield’s, “Do the Work.” (I loved the reality that’s inherent in that work.) Some days nothing appears, and I feel as though I’m stuck in a depression. Not the psych depression, but the feeling that I’m in a hole. Looking up for inspiration. (Always look up when your in a hole. it’s an old Zen saying I find useful.)

People inspire me, animals inspire me, weather inspires me, writers, friends, poetry, stupid shit inspires me, and so does Krishnamurti’s writings and Charles Bukowski’s.

You, the readers, inspire me. I care.

And yet there were, and are, those days when there is no Muse. She’s partying or probably sleeping. I still doodle. Storm the idea front. Attempt to expand and push my envelope a little. And sometime it hurts. If it hurts bad enough, I go for a walk, clean something, go out, call a friend or text, and then return to the work. So why the f**k go through the process if I’m not being rewarded most of the time? (What is the dharma about those two temporary states, between inspiration and dedication?)

I’m potentiating.

Filling up the inspiration container with experiences, noticing, attention, information, feelings, moods, tears, hatred, good times, friends, animals, and plants. The container bulges and moans, comes to a tipping point, and explodes.

Into a temporary period of writing when I know I’m in love with expressing the self as best I can with whatever I can bring to the moment with every bit of passion that is in me.

It peaks and expresses and fades, into another state of potentiation in attention.

Inspiration rises when attention is on being inspired, when attention isn’t on inspiration then there’s the potentiation flowing, slowly or quickly replenishing.

What inspires me today? Where can I find inspiration? Ask, Am I open to being inspired?

Take care of you today, another day of possibilities.

Bryan Wagner

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