Inspiration

Inspiration isn’t just about creativity for me – it’s about living. Being inspired, being creative, being happy, are all one. As I grow older I begin to realise that many of the seemingly diverse emotions I experience, like love, contentedness, elation, motivation, are just facets of a state of being that overwhelms me from time to time.

My muse.

Maybe it’s because I have to be creative to be happy, and am happiest when being creative. But increasingly I feel that maybe after all, human emotions are not so complex. There is the good, and the bad. And tapping into the good can be achieved in an infinite number of ways.

I remember that when I was going through the toughest year of my life so far, about a year and a half ago now, I would surprise myself sometimes by suddenly encountering a brief but intense moment of pure elation. It would come upon me without warning, and at the time I thought of it as hope. It was something that would come to me in times of real crisis, almost as if it were a natural human reaction to extreme anguish. And it was almost always triggered by the beauty of sunlit room or garden.

I had probably always noticed that the beauty of nature had a particularly strong effect on me, but this was the first time that I thought about it consciously. I began to realise that it was perhaps beyond the normal human response to aesthetics. It eventually led me down the road of revisiting pantheism as a world view, something I seem to return to in times of need, but relinquish again once the need – whatever it is – is fulfilled.

Another effect that sunlit, leafy scenery has always had on me is the need to write, or create. I have sat by my bedroom window on many, many occasions with a notepad or laptop on the desk before me, writing myself into a pure and still contented feeling that is difficult to capture. I have written countless songs on my piano as the sun sets on my back, illuminating the wall before me in pink and golden tones. Snow has the same effect, but is much more rare when I live. But whatever way I attain it, this nature-linked, creativity-driven state seems to be one of the purest forms of happiness I feel.

Love is the same feeling. I have felt it with varying strength for many people, and these days I feel it most of all for my cat. So all of these things are completely intertwined for me – the beauty of nature, inspiration, love, happiness.

I think I would like this blog to reflect that. It’s a difficult concept to define, partly because it is so broad and so varied, and partly because it is purely emotional. But I would like, maybe, to have a place to write about the things that motivate me, the things that make me happy, the things that inspire me to live life. Because what is life without inspiration?

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Branches

Rediscovery

I can’t remember what got me thinking about photography again. I know it’s something that has briefly crossed my mind at various points, but it has always seemed – as with so many other things I could conceivably do – like it would take an awful lot of effort to be even passable at it.

But still, recently I seem to have decided to give a go at it anyway. I think it was mostly in relation to this blog. I realised that it hasn’t exactly been living up to my own expectations of it, and I decided I wanted to broaden my horizons with it a little. Unfortunately, at the moment I don’t have too much time to do any of the interesting things that people normally document in their blogs, but photography seemed like a good place to start, and an easy element to add to my random ramblings

So I dug out my old Nikon point and shoot.

I’m no fool, and I wasn’t expecting a point and shoot to produce startlingly beautiful images, but I’m not going to lie – I was immediately disappointed. Then I remember that this is the reason I had sort of given up on the idea in the first place.

I am, however, going to perservere with this and get to the point where I can actually take decent pictures with its limited functionality. My father has a fairly decent DSLR so I’m secretly planning to “borrow” his for long periods of time to see if this particular whim amounts to anything.

In the meantime, I’ll be using my little Nikon, though.

Admittedly, I didn’t do much with it today, bar take about 50 versions of the photo above, and a lot of pictures of my hand, solely with the purpose of despairing over the lack of pretty bokeh in the resulting pictures. Aperture and shutter speed are two things that my camera does badly, but refuses to be corrected on.

The new project is exciting though! And it may encourage me to write more of these silly little notes. Real writing is again on hiatus, but come May (when my classes have finished) I will get going properly again.

Bumble

Publish or Perish

Despite my best intentions, I not only had to deal with the usual onslaught of college work after starting my second semester of library school, but managed to be sick not only once but twice in the past three months. So unfortunately my writing has suffered the consequences.

However, I do have some good news – my University’s literary magazine will be publishing one of my short stories this year! I think this is only the second time I’ve ever submitted anything for publication, so even though it’s just a University publication I’m still quite thrilled at the prospect. It will be the first time I see my own words in print!

Once it’s been published I’ll post it here with the relevant reference to the original publication.

 

[You can read it here –> Demise]