I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately. My first mistake is falling asleep with my daughter when I’m putting her down (It’s not my fault! She’s so warm and squishy!). But then I wake up, fall out of her bed, get up just long enough to gather what I need before going into my own bed, and then proceed … to remain wide awake for hours. As I stumbled through my house this morning, having had entirely too little sleep, I decided that the next time this happens to me, I’m just going to get up and write.
You see, after a short nap, my brain is rested just enough to let all my thoughts from the day fall away, and I wake up energized and full of fun thoughts and ideas. So this morning, it got me thinking.
Where does inspiration come from? Where does passion come from? Which came first: the passion, the inspiration, or the fun? They’re all inter-related, don’t you think?
Mixology
I’ve been observing my daughter this week (as I often do) and really noticed just how artsy she really is. She is attracted to all things creative (signers, dancers, musicians and even this one beatboxer – she’s fascinated by how all these amazing sounds could possibly come from his mouth) and loves to sing and play instruments herself. We were given this old piano keyboard and I can tell when she sits there that she’s just dying to learn how to really use the keys to make the music that is playing inside her mind. She’s also constantly drawing and painting, and watching her talent evolve with every drawing, becoming more and more detailed, adding more elements to her images, has been such an awe-inspiring experience for me.
And so, as I was browsing through various YouTube videos to find all sorts of cool videos that I know she would love, I realized that these things were also my own sources of inspiration.
I could walk around a photo or art gallery for hours, appreciating the creativity and beauty that others put together. I can spend way too much time on stock image websites, just drinking in the riot of colours and images that people painstakingly create and offer to the world. I love watching shows like So you think you can Dance where music and dance come together in such amazing artistic creations (oh which one to link to? How about this one, or this one, or maybe this one). The sheer athleticism that these people translate into grace and beauty to tell us a story with music and movement, blows my mind every time.
When people let their passion inspire them, amazing things are created.
Art, in all its forms, is often my source of inspiration. It ignites a passion within me. And the artists that take their passion and present it in a fun way add even more fuel to my fire.
I don’t have their kind of talent; but maybe that’s why I can appreciate it so much.
Maybe that’s where talent comes from: passion, inspiration, creativity. When we experience these things, we feel more alive than any other time. It’s when we have the most fun. Why else would we attend concerts, visit art galleries, read novels, watch broadway plays?
Art is life
Sports are also another demonstration of passion. Have you attended a sport event lately? How passionate are those fans? And people who are especially passionate about their sport really appreciate the strategy, the nuances of the game and the human element of surprise that somehow always finds its way in the game to make things interesting. For these fans, their favourite sport is also an art form.
Creativity is a part of us all
I always thought that I wasn’t a creative person. I used to always say that I was an “in the box” thinker. I just felt comfortable painting inside the lines; playing by the rules. In fact, when I was doing my undergraduate degree, I took a course on Creativity. I wanted to push myself to think outside the box. I “knew” I wasn’t creative by nature and so I wanted to challenge myself to develop such a skill.
Let me tell you, for someone like me, it was a TOUGH course! I remember doing short exercises like writing down as many uses for a paper clip as we could think of in a 5-minute time frame. What else can you do with a paper clip than clipping papers together!?
What I didn’t know, was that I was always creative; I just didn’t know that my creativity manifested itself in a different way than those I admired.
When I thought of art, I always thought of drawing, paintings, music, and dance. I never thought of writing as an art form. But it is.
Have you ever been so enthralled with the story within a book you were reading, that you found yourself literally unable to put it down? That you could read for hours and not even feel time pass? When you think of it that way, telling stories is, indeed, an art form. It’s just not “pretty” like painting, dancing, or making music.
When I feel inspired, I write. And I write because it’s a passion of mine. And when I’m writing about a topic that I’m passionate about, I’m having so much fun that time seems to stand still. But I was having fun watching or reading something that someone else created, and maybe that’s what inspired me… Fun. Inspiration. Passion. It all mixes together to create one beautiful, delicious, amazing pie.
Does it matter which comes first? Not really.
What matters is that you follow it as far as it takes you when it strikes. That’s when you create your best stuff.
What’s your method of creativity?
Do you paint? Do you write? Do you create websites? Do you code? Do you create digital images? Are you a photographer? Do you film?
Don’t be shy. Share it with me! And then maybe we can inspire each other.
– Mel
C’est interessant,que tu abordes un tel sujet.
Je vais te rappeler quelques evenements, de ton enfance qui te diront que tu avais a un très jeune âge, la fibre artistique.
Tu avais 2 ans et tu chantais ,avec une voix très juste .et une très bonne prononciation,toutes les chansons que je te montrais. A 3 ans tu chantais avec tes 2 sœurs dans ma petite chorale de Noel et tu chantais ta partie pendant que tes2 sœurs elles chantaient chacune leur partie et cela sans fausser! Les gens étaient épater de t’entendre et avec raison.
Tu chantais seule Et chantais avec une voix juste a 3 ans et etait capable de suivre l!organiste. Et tu tenais ton micro comme une pro. Et tu ne semblais pas intimider de chanter devant une foule.
Alors demande toi pas dé qui a rétiens ta fille . Il te faut nourrir ceci.et ta créativité a toi, bravo de te remettre à ecrire.je te rappelé, qu’il y avait un temps où tu écrivais et partageais ta passion avec ton oncle ,excellent écrivain, j.f. Somain. Ce qu’il doit être fier de ca de l!Autre côté du voile.
Merci Maman! J’avais oublié l’histoire où je chantais devant la foule à un si jeune âge. I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree after all 😉
Interesting article. I think we are creative. It is impossible not to create something. For years, I thought I had no talent and I wasn’t artistic or creative enough. Yet, I have always wanted to be an artist of some kind. I thought if I had been born in a different, more artistic family my talents would have been supported and developed. In the 70s and 80s at school the predominant idea was that you were born with talent or not. Years later, I found out that a lot of is just practice. These days I am just writing in my blog. See where it takes me.