About Inspiration

As a blogger and as a writer, I have met face-first the empty slate that stays and stays that way.  Some folks call it writer's block.  Today, however, I am inspired by psychoanalyst Adam Phillip's essay on inspiration. Here's an excerpt:

....And yet inspiration is a word no one is shy of using now, even though they are not that keen to explain how it might work. It is the kind of magic that people like to believe in, perhaps especially now, in a culture where money can buy virtually everything else of value, and science and technology can create or invent the things we most need. Inspiration, in other words, is a kind of God-term; it refers to something we think of as essential but that we can't, or may not want to, understand. As Eliot suggests, it is like a visitation from something profound and incomprehensible. It reassures us, or at least reminds us, that some of the best things about us are beyond our control.

Whatever it is that feeds us our best lines - the gods or God, the unconscious or the genes, the class war - it is something we depend upon but cannot command. Like God's grace, inspiration doesn't respond to our need or our greed for it. It is not a resource we can exploit; and it doesn't look as if, at least as yet, science or technology can help us get more of it.

Source: Observer, March 12, 2006

Comments

[katie]

Blessed be the Muses
for their descent,
dancing round my desk,
crowning my balding head
with Laurel.

A poem by Allen Ginsberg

Balding or not, inspiration comes as a blessing!
Love this blog site.

[sally]

Wonderful!

I find that inspiration comes either in moments of sheer panic (impending deadlines) or after I've had a good long period to let concepts float in my subconcious.

Designs from the latter category tend to be the very best.

Thanks! I'm taping your post near my desk.