I am inspired by everything.
This wasn't always the case and of course, there are times when it is still not.
However, after living in pursuit of inspiration and finding the presence of wonder in even the smallest of moments, I am hooked.
Be it a white-painted brick that is rubbed off in the exact right spots, a familiar smell floating on the humid hum of a Charleston summer day or an enticingly strung together series of words that you hear as you pass by an individual speaking into their phone with headphones in, this shit is everywhere and it makes me incredibly excited.
As someone who spends a considerable amount of time writing, I also spend a considerable amount of time trying to process and understand the world around me so that I can continue to write. Perhaps this is why I am always on the lookout for inspiration but from my experience, inspiration rarely comes when I am intentionally seeking a new idea or thought.
Rather, I think "living in pursuit of inspiration" means that we go through life remaining open. And by that, I mean that we don't wake up every day thinking "I've gotta force everything out of this day and find something to be inspired by!"
No. We wake up every day thinking "I am open to receiving all of the incredible and unexpected details and moments that will cross my path today, not forcing these details." There is a difference between remaining open and controlling when we become open.
If you've ever held something delicate like an egg and wanted to protect it so badly that your tight grip led to it breaking, then you know what I mean by this.
The tighter we hold onto our perspectives and our realities, the more we close in on them and narrow our scope of inspiration. This kind of mentality eventually breaks us. Or it broke me, at least. It's a frustrating place to be when you feel limited by your own reality and perspective.
The best part about being broken is that you have full autonomy to put the pieces back any way you want or create something entirely new, which is what I did and which is why I choose to constantly look for the presence of wonder.
The forced days are always the worst days. The best days are the ones where you allow yourself to be surprised by finding joy in something like the way your fuschia lipstick stains the edge of the white lid on your coffee cup or the way two kindergartners were giggling and talking to their imaginary horse in the corner of the playground on your way to work.
Perhaps this whole phenomenon and shift of choosing to live a life in pursuit of inspiration can be described by a thought I jotted down while trying to remain open and receptive to my surroundings in transit one day on a subway:
"And in the end, I realized I loved the way it all happened. Not at first, of course, and not all at once. Because I've never been one to embrace dramatic changes that distort the basis of what I know to be true-- but eventually, bit by bit, I found a strange appreciation in returning to a place where nothing is different and at the same time, everything feels different. And then there's the subtle realization that the only thing that's really different, is you. And this is what makes the difference."
I share this to encourage anyone who is willing to go through one day (or even one hour) where you find inspiration in the tiniest of moments. For me, inspiration is a byproduct of gratitude. When we shift the paradigm of the way we view the world around us, amazing things begin to happen. When we begin to realize that we can still change our surroundings even if our surroundings don't physically change. This is because when we experience internal changes, we experience a change in our perspective, which means we begin to see our surroundings differently.
Think of the first time you returned to your hometown after moving off to college. The town is the same, the people are mostly the same but you experience these surroundings in an entirely new light because you are the thing that is different.
When we experience this paradigm shift, we begin to notice. We notice the most fascinating pattern in the wood grain of a table at a coffee shop. We begin to notice the way a tree goes and flows to some intrinsically understood choreography as the wind moves its branches. We notice the most vibrant shades of colors while looking at the vegetables in the grocery store and think to ourselves "Woah. Nature is pretty damn cool and has one amazing color palette."
Granted, these statements are specific to my thought patterns and may sound absurd to some or interesting to others. However, I've always thought that the best way to change our perspective is to try on someone else's.
