A Letter to the Seekers

Dear Seekers of Inspiration.

As I was trying to decide what I wanted to say to you, I kept waiting for some sort of inspiration to come to me. I wanted my fingers to suddenly write something down on the paper that would knock my socks off. But nothing would come–how typical. Nothing grand or amazing, nothing at all. I was looking at quotes online to see if they would give me some inspiration when this one caught my eye:

“The great composer does not set to work because he is inspired, but becomes inspired because he is working.  Beethoven, Wagner, Bach and Mozart settled down day after day to the job in hand with as much regularity as an accountant settles down each day to his figures.  They didn't waste time waiting for inspiration.”  

~Ernest Newman

How quaint.  This is just what had happened to me. I was sitting, waiting for inspiration to find me, until I decided to go and find it. For a long time inspiration was something that just came to me; when I would write it was because I was inspired to write. When I would make something creative it was because I had the idea to do so in the first place, not because I had an assignment. Because it was exactly what I wanted to do.

Finally, today I discovered that inspiration is so much more. I wondered if there was anything more to becoming inspired besides work, so I Googled it. I found an article in the New York Times that narrowed it down to these three things. 1. Work. 2. Be Frustrated. 3. Repeat. Hmm, interesting. Work and frustration and back around in a sort of cycle. As I thought about it I came to this conclusion:

When we work for inspiration, we will gain it. It will take some work but we will gain it. It might take longer than we expected, and we will become frustrated, but we will keep working. Beethoven was deaf and couldn’t even hear some of the great works he composed. I’m sure that at times it frustrated him greatly, but he didn’t give up, he kept on working. He is now known for many of his great works such as Für Elise and Piano Sonata No. 8. Beethoven didn’t waste time just looking at his piano waiting for inspiration, he set to work pounding on it, trying to get inspired.

The great artists of this world didn’t just sit down one day and say, “I’m inspired today, I think I’ll paint a picture that will go down in history.” That doesn’t happen. How many times did Van Gogh have to start over on his paintings? How many Bars of Music did Mozart cross out before he felt like he got it right? How many times have I written and rewritten this paper before inspiration came?

Inspiration doesn’t usually come as you sit in the mountains, or as you look at your bedroom bookshelf.  Inspiration comes at each moment as you work towards the thing you want. It comes when you are frustrated because nothing will flow into your brain, and when nothing seems to fit just how you want it. It comes because you are willing to become inspired by hard work and frustration. Nothing that is worth much in life is easily gained. We have to work for it, it makes us mad and frustrated at times, but that is how we gain things in life, we must be willing.

Sincerely yours,

Missy Nelson, a Seeker of Inspiration.