.:.Getting Inspired

I can be inspired by just about anything. I’m one of those people constantly scribbling on napkins, in sketch books, and in my palm pilot. But to be inspired for those bigger things, it takes a bit more--in fact, I’m learning that there’s a whole messy, drawn-out, confusing process that often takes place in me. That was definitely the case for Out of the Overflow. Like most of my moments of grand inspiration, the subject matter was rumbling around in the depths of my life for quite some time-- whispers and shadows. I heard those rumblings and it made me a little uneasy. It turns out that a specific anthem was beginning to swell up in me. Then came the fun part in the process. I’d hear or read something from someone else and suddenly get the picture. Sometimes they’d present the whole concept for me, and other times I’d just get a phrase that would get caught up in all sorts of things.

From here, I felt like I was climbing aboard a great ship that had been steady on its course for quite some time--maybe even being hauled up onto the deck splashing and sputtering. From then on I had a new sort of inspiration-- a new curiosity and confidence that grew into an obsession. When I got to that point, the ideas had tea time right on the tip of my tongue and for a penny, or even at the faintest opportunity, I’d let them spill out. One of the coolest things is that, without fail, I would hear about things that fall right in line with that topic from other peoples’ lives. This stretched every aspect of the issue and drove the topic even further into my consciousness.

Which brings to mind the thread that began to tie my first album together, “out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.” So after I have this theme, you might assume that I write some songs and that’s it-- end of this theme, on to the next one. That’s what I thought. How naive was I....

I thought I had tilled the ground, planted the seed, grown a big tree, and squeezed my first cup of juice. Now I think a more accurate picture might be one of God, who after weeding and cultivating had finally just sat back and said, “now there’s some good dirt.” That’s when the deepest and most interesting piece of all of this happened. The theory began to seep into my life. For one thing, I had no idea that I could learn from my own songs. There were a few times that I felt like songs had just popped out of me--like I went to get a sandwich to push through my writer’s block and there was a great song in my notebook when i got back--like it happened without me. I know that other writers have felt like that too--I’ve heard them say it. I can understand having to take a step back and figure out what a song means from there, but to be dwelling on a topic for months, maybe years and then to feel like you’ve never thought about it before is a strange experience. I learned that I had gotten into the good habit of saying we have an abundance, which completely prepared me to believe it and then see what that really means. So now I’m learning through pain and beauty what some of the thoughts I’ve thunk for years really mean and getting inspired all the while.

.:.CS



.:.Reading Log

God’s Debris: A Thought Experiment
This is a book by Scott Adams, the creator of the Dilbert comics. It was definitely one of those books that just makes you think a bit.