Inspiration

Two weeks ago I promised to write one or more blogs on the idea of inspiration, inspired, so to speak, by the book titled Inspiration by the Dutch psychologist Ap Dijksterhuis. “Inspiration” seems to be an inspiring word, for a short search on the internet showed me that the word is used as a name or title for a liqueur brand, for magazines, for a film, etc. etc. People see it as a positive value that can help to draw attention to what you have produced and want to promote.
The word inspiration has different meanings. For example, it can refer to Biblical inspiration, artistic or creative inspiration or to inhalation or breathing. It will be clear that it’s not the third kind of inspiration that I have in mind. Nor do I want to talk about Biblical inspiration, which refers to the supposed divine origin of the Bible. What I want to talk about is artistic or creative inspiration. In the Wikipedia a distinction is made between artistic and creative inspiration. Artistic inspiration should refer to creativity in artistic productions, while creative inspiration should refer to inventions (defined by the Wikipedia as unique or novel devices, methods, compositions, ideas or processes). I think that this distinction is not right and that artistic inspiration and creative inspiration are different expressions of the same basic process. Let me call this basic inspiration simply creative inspiration.
What then is creative inspiration, or – from now on – inspiration for short? My already rather old Collins Cobuild English Dictionary for Advanced Learners, which is my inspiration for correct English already for sixteen years when writing these blogs, says it this way: “Inspiration is a feeling of enthusiasm you get from someone or something, which gives you new creative ideas.” I think that it is a good characterization of what we mean by inspiration, whether you have become inspired as an artist, a writer, an inventor, a scientist or scholar, or also as a collector of, say, stamps or model trains. However, all this is yet very abstract, for it’s quite a difference, whether I get (as in my case) the idea to write a philosophical blog, which filled me with a feeling of enthusiasm sixteen years ago; whether I get the idea to write a blog about inspiration, which filled me with a feeling of enthusiasm an hour ago; or whether I am filled with a feeling of enthusiasm right now at this moment, because I am happy that I can type down these sentences, for example, because I just succeeded (with the help of some searching on the internet) to distinguish creative inspiration from other kinds of inspiration. Therefore, Dijksterhuis distinguishes three forms of inspiration (p. 31):
- Evocation: Your mission what you want to do or want to become. For instance that you want to become a writer or a philosophical blogger.
- The idea: Once you know what you want to become, you must have the inspiration for a concrete idea like a book or blog. For instance, that you want to write a fantasy novel about a young wizard, or, in my case, that you want to write several blogs about inspiration.
- The process: What is happening in your mind when you are developing your idea. For example, the process of how to structure your book, the popping up of the words in your mind when you are busy with writing the text of your book; or in my case the flow that comes from my mind that makes that I write these words for my blog.
This is what inspiration is. However, knowing what something is is not the same as knowing how you get it, and that is also so in the case of inspiration in all its forms. But everyone can become inspired, when he or she works hard for it, as Dijksterhuis shows in his book.