On Inspiration

Of all the things about writing, needed for writing, inspiration is one of the most fundamental and important.

Life is inspiration, but not all the time. Life can become so tediously boring that one is not able to find any inspiration within it. It can become dark and cluttered, depressed and unhappy, so much so that any inspiration that comes is quickly thrown away by an unwanting attitude.

In order for writers to have success, they must therefore have many sources of inspiration, from which they gain metaphorical writing material. But this can be hard for a lot of people because they are too trapped within the confines of their own comfortable lifestyles to even want to make a change. And when nothing changes, when all is stagnant, inspiration too will be nowhere to be found. What I am saying, is that writing is not all about the actual act of typing on the computer keyboard, or maneuvering the pencil in your hand to form beautiful sentences. It is largely about finding true inspiration, true moments in life that make one want to write about, in the most perfect form ever, so that the words may be remembered forever. Writing is about preserving memories and about capturing the essence of the moment of inspiration. Writing is great for life in that it urges one to become different, to see things from a different perspective, and to think about what these things mean, both in the real and imaginary world. The mind is a cutting board: the moments come, we enjoy them for a while, and then they are cut up and placed in a bowl we call the past. Writing is the knife sharpener. Writers use it to move on more smoothly in life and to help find faster, different objects to examine and cut up. But if the knife isn't sharp enough, the objects go into the bowl flawed and uneven, so much that we cannot appreciate its full value as a simple memory of a once beautiful moment in life.