Tag: inspiration

Travel and a sense of Self

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Last night I flew from Seattle to Oakland, CA where I am spending a couple of weeks with family. After devoting myself almost exclusively over the past month to getting this website up and running, the change in scenery was a shock to my system.

I love to travel. I could wax poetic about scenery and freedom and seeing new things but what I really get out of traveling is a true, simplistic sense of self. When I’m traveling I’m not surrounded by the daily reminders of routine and responsibilities, nor by acquaintances, nor my apartment full of ‘stuff’ that has come to represent the physical proof of my existence. When I travel those things break away and I am left with just me. Sometimes that’s a scary realization: I am who I am independently of my external surroundings.

So this morning when I woke up I had one of those “where am I” experiences. Since I moved to Seattle from the Bay Area both of my parents have moved a few times, so when I come to visit the feeling of ‘home’ centers around people, not places. Lying there on the hide-a-bed in my dad’s home recording studio, it really hit me that when I travel I break myself down and find the essence of ME.

Last April I was lucky enough to travel to Italy for two weeks where I spent my first few days wandering Roma solo (sola). Before leaving Seattle, I comically spent three weeks cramming on Italian language CD’s yet made the (somewhat irrational) decision to just immerse myself as much as possible once there, sans map. I landed at Fiumicino airport with directions to the hotel I had booked for one night and not much else. Over the next few days I just walked. I had been to Rome once before in 2003 so I had an idea of the places I wanted to revisit and things (mostly art) I had missed the first time around but was determined to avoid ‘a plan’ as much as possible.

After two days of aching feet, a full belly, two memory cards full of pictures and a new-found appreciation for the Italian way of life (and homemade pasta), I noticed that the anxiety I sometimes experience before throwing myself into a new situation had never even come up. I reflected on this over many cappuccini. Like I did this morning, I came to the realization that traveling by myself in a new environment had stripped me down into my component parts and what was left was a true sense of self. Once this idea had sunk in, it was like a fire had been lit inside me. With everything else stripped clear, I felt shiny and literally able to accomplish anything I set my mind to. I was also so far removed from my usual surroundings and acquaintances that all ties felt severed and I was free to just EXPERIENCE without external influence.

In those two weeks I just ABSORBED. Having a true sense of self in an unfamiliar place was like a license to try everything on for size to see how it fit. I very much admire people who are present enough to experience this daily. Apparently I need to get out of dodge before the realization hits.

Have you experienced this before?

Riding the Sine curve

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I often find myself riding a sine curve through life. How to explain…

 Consider the x-axis (horizontal) as time stretching into infinity and the y-axis (not shown here, vertical) as a measure of positive or negative (successful or unsuccessful) creativity. As time progresses, I am swept through periods of creative success and failure, always hovering around the median line of equilibrium.

As an artist, my creativity follows this sine curve. I will go for a week without rest to complete a project, all the while starting new works and recording inspirations constantly. At the height of the curve my creativity is insatiable, almost to the point of detriment to actual progress. I am overwhelmed by ideas! The world around me teems with inspiration and while ideas flow freely, it is next to impossible to stop and focus on just one.

Conversely, when my sine curve dips below equilibrium, I can be thrown into bouts of boredom, restlessness, insatiability, frustration and severe lack of motivation. It is during these periods, despite the multiple projects sitting half-completed on my desk, that I find myself watching whole seasons of Arrested Development. I recognize what is happening, yet to pull myself out of my dip of boredom and lack of inspiration is beyond my ability.

Soon, however, the motivation comes back. I finish the season of Arrested Development, and instead of starting season 2, I think of alternate plot endings and start writing them down. The duvet cover on my bed that I’ve grown so familiar with (after a whole season of tv) seems too simple and I find myself sketching designs to alter it. I go through my bookshelf and select a book I’ve yet to read. And I read it. Gradually, aided by the time axis, I pull myself back above equilibrium.

Yet equilibrium is where I am most definitively productive. Right between creative ineptitude and over-stimulation, I find I am able to think most critically while maintaining the stamina and interest to complete more difficult projects.

And thus, my creative cycle played out yet again, my inspiration and abilities continue to grow and expand.  Recognizing the cycle has helped me to both overcome and accept it: If I recognize that I am in a state of boredom and am feeling uninspired, simply acknowledging my place on the curve helps put things into perspective. No, I haven’t lost my passion for art, I’m just at the bottom of the curve. Likewise, I have learned that in a time of intensive creativity I must write everything down. Notebooks overflow, and when I find myself looking up from the bottom of the curve again I have projects to assign myself to get the ball rolling.

Creativity is organic; inspiration is everywhere.