From when we’re young we’re asked who and what inspires us and why. Whether for school projects, college applications or job interviews, we’re expected to know exactly how to respond and to give an answer that reflects our personality in both a unique and tick box fashion.
But do you remember ever being told what inspiration is or how it feels to be truly inspired? No, nor do I.
In fact, I remember feeling so embarrassed at being unable to give an answer from the heart that I used my phone under the desk to google someone else’s response. When my turn came to tell the class my answer, I blurted out what I’d just read like a bad actor would rehearsed lines, in monotone with no emotional connection.
It’s all very well emphasizing the importance of having role models and encouraging our youth to find the source of inspiration behind their ambitions, but until they feel it for themselves, or at least know something about the feeling, they’ll spout answers that they don’t fully understand.
Only now, years later and too late to ace that college application question am I able to sincerely say that I know what it feels like to be inspired. So what does it feel like?
Feeling inspired is being so overwhelmed by awe that you feel proud to have known the source of it even if only for the briefest of encounters. Regardless of how long or short your passing with them, you know that their influence will touch your life and each decision you make from then on out. Your admiration of their achievements, their attitude, or whatever it may be, will stay with you forever in your hopes and dreams. Maybe you hope that one day you will be the one to make an impression on someone’s life as they did yours.
For me, being inspired by someone is like having a love that you don’t mind keeping at arms length, maybe because it’s slightly tainted by envy. Edgar Allan Poe said of poetry a quote that could also be applied to the fundamentals of inspiration, that it is ‘no mere appreciation of the beauty before us – but a wild effort to reach the beauty above.’ Whilst we may regard someone’s features or qualities as beautifully desirable, we aren’t content with simply having the ability to admire them, instead we strive to attain the qualities that first attracted us. The same applies if we were to consider that we can be inspired by things other than fellow humans. Perhaps we look out unto scenes of nature and the sublime, and become inspired by the realization of our relative insignificance.
For example, lets say we visit the Grand Canyon, and are overcome by its magnificence; maybe in that moment it isn’t enough to appreciate what is before us, and we become inspired to see what else the world has to offer, we want to see more, know more and maybe in some way we hope this will make us be more.
I live in the UK, in the country’s most uneventful city, where the most interesting story in the local paper is about banning dressing gowns in supermarkets.
I travel and I write, because surely there are more interesting stories than that to write about and share.
