Posts Tagged ‘inspiration’

This post is the first in a blog challenge that I am taking part in with a great fellow blogger, and an even better friend, Chrissa.  You can find her on Twitter – @Chrissarella – and over on her blog at A Little Wicked.  She found a list of 50 Lists to Write to Lift Your Spirits.  Even if you don’t need your spirits lifted, it’s a great list of lists.  And out of that link and a few tweets came the idea of the 50-50 Challenge.  Every day for the next 50 days, we will be posting a blog tackling one of those lists.  If you want to take part, have at it.  Drop me a comment to let me know, I’d love to read your answers, too!

List #1:  People that have influenced or inspired you.

This is perhaps both the easiest and the hardest list for me to write about.  Easy, because there are just so damn many people that inspire me; hard for the same reason.  Picking just a few is going to be difficult.

First off, I am rarely inspired or influenced by famous people.  I see people every day regurgitating quotes from famous people.  I don’t find them all that inspiring.  In fact, I generally have the same thought run through my head whenever I see someone quote a celebrity. ” How damn  inspired am I supposed to be by someone when I can not identify with them in any way?”  Screw that.  I get my inspiration from real people.  People who’s lives I can look at and say, “Fuck Yeah! I GET that shit!”  The people that inspire me are the people in my LIFE.

That being said, let’s start at the beginning.

The Parents. They are my first inspiration.  They inspired me to live up to my own potential, and to remember that I am the only one that can judge myself as lacking.  They inspired me to give of myself fully when I am able, and to remember that sometimes, I will have to lean on others.  My father inspired me with his logic, my mother inspired me with her heart.  Together, they inspired in me a long held belief that true, ever-lasting love not only exists, it’s out there waiting to be discovered.

The Brother. Three words. Just keep swimming.

The Best Friend. She inspires me with her strength, her conviction of character, her honestly and her loyalty.  She is one of the strongest people I know, and while she’ll tell you differently, I’ve never believed it.  I know what strength lies within her.  I’ve seen it.  I’ve grabbed it and hung on for dear fucking life when I’ve had to.  And it’s always there. For the record, she also influences me.  But that’s mostly bad. It is, however, always fun. Heh.

The Writers. These people have inspired me with their talent, and with their words.  Every time I read their work, it reminds me why I write.  Whether it’s poetry, prose, rants, or essays, these are real people with the ability to make me want to be a better writer:  David, Annie, Dina, Chrissa, and Brian.

The Light Makers. These two inspire me every day. Every. Day. Whether it’s with a shared article, or a shared smile, or just dropping something into my life that I happened to need right then, they are the ones that have added light to my days for almost two years now.  Two kinda dark years, at that.  Staci J. Shelton is the Lady of Light, and I adore her.  Light is her talent, and it is her gift.  And there is little that I can say about Khayyam Wakil that hasn’t been said before, and probably by me.  He is Khayyam.  And he doesn’t just bring the shine wherever he goes, he IS the shine wherever he goes.

The Friends. They all inspire me in their own ways.  They all hold a lovely little place on the cherished mantle of my heart.  I’m not going to link you all or name you all.  I suppose I could, but really… we’re passed that by now, aren’t we?  I mean, you know I’m all bitchy and crabby and shit, and yet you seem to like me anyhow, you crazy-stellar people.  Trust me when I tell you that you inspire me.  Your humour, your support, your wit and your everything else inspire me to be the kind of friend to you that you have been to me.

The Loved. When it comes to people, I do not throw the word ‘love’ around lightly.  If you’ve heard it from me, then you have inspired me to say it.  You know who you are, and what you mean to me.  You? You inspire me to believe.

Yeah.

I don’t have to look far for my inspiration.

I am one lucky snarkbitch.

An interesting read was brought to my attention today by a good friend of mine, Tim Wood.

I noticed that he was getting passionate on Twitter, and enquired as to why.  He forwarded me a link that he said was relevant to me.  I read it and realized that it is not only relevant to me, but to any number of bloggers out there, or anyone who writes anything, anywhere.

The post that I read was posted at She Posts, and was pertaining to a skirmish that is occurring right now between Ellen Spragins, the author of a best selling book, and Cassie Boorm, a blogger.  Just like me.  Just like a lot of you.

Spragins is upset because she feels that Boorm co-opted her idea of writing letters to your younger self, and is using it on her blog.  When Boorm realized this (she had never heard of Spragins before this, nor had I – bestseller or not) she wrote a post acknowledging Spragins’ work.  And that should be the end of that, right?

Uh, no.

Spragins is now on a little rampage (is there such a thing as a little rampage) to ensure that all of the work that could be similar to hers is not merely acknowledged, but taken down.  All content.  Gone.

Give me.  A fucking.  Break.

I wrote a letter to my younger self when I was in school as part of a class project.  Should I be concerned?  Should I dig that letter out and burn it in the fire pit in my back yard to appease Spragins?  I suppose I should probably make a few calls, too.  I mean there are people that should be aware of Spragins’ warpath.  My prof, the school, my fellow students.  They’re all in danger of being targeted by this woman.

Can we – just for a moment – gloss over the fact that writing letters to younger or future selves is a long standing therapeutic technique?  That, frankly, this woman’s claim that it was her idea originally is pretty much ludicrous?  That Spragins’ saying a letter such as that is her idea is tantamount to my saying that drinking coffee in the morning is a good idea, simply because I said it here, just now, and will shortly be publishing that sentence?

Come on…

I think we all have to face the fact that there aren’t really any original ideas out there anymore.  Sure, there might be ideas that haven’t been acted upon, or that haven’t been published; but every idea you’ve had, I can almost guarantee you that someone else has had the same one – or similar – at some point in time.

Tim put this in perspective far better than I could have, so I will quote him here.

There’s a whole legal calculus in patents about just how hard one should search for prior art, and when. The US Patent Office now grants preferences if you’ve done a search. But if you search and miss something, or ignore it, you can face bigger penalties for infringement.  Fun world.

It’s called due diligence.  If we earnestly seek out previous work, attribute it where applicable, then that is all we can really do.

If we have an idea, if we are inspired by something, are we then expected to mine every corner of the internet, every library, every art museum to ensure that our idea is completely without similarity?  Good lord, nothing would ever get written, painted or otherwise again.

As a writer, I am very cognizant of giving credit where it’s due.  Be it an idea for a post, a quotation from another blogger, a piece of artwork that isn’t in the public domain, or even a tweet that happened to spark a rant.  Heh.

Most artists, in most mediums, will tell you that they are constantly inspired by others.  That’s part of what it means to BE an artist.  To seek out inspiration and to build upon it until you have, yourself, created art.

I will also go so far as to say that most artists are thrilled to be inspiring.  When I am mentioned in a post by one of my fellow writers, I take an unimaginable amount of joy in that.  I know the feeling of being inspired, and to be part of the reason that another artist is feeling that is something that humbles me.  Every damned time it happens, it is humbling.

I have been brought to tears at the beauty of what other writers have been able to convey after having been inspired by something I wrote, or by a discussion that we’d had, or even by a link that I happened to tweet out.

Why is it that Spragins’ seems to be missing this point?

It seems to me that her book is supposed to be inspiring.  It’s supposed to help other people realize that their mis-steps are shared by people who have overcome them and become highly successful.  Why the hell can’t this woman see that same thing when it comes to Boorm’s blog?

Would you like to know what Spragins’ is inspiring in her fellow artists now?  Mistrust.  Fear.  Worry.  And I’m guessing more than a few cases of writer’s block.  This woman has no clue what it means to inspire people.

So, I’d like to give her a little dose of inspiration.

Ms. Spragins.  Look to the right of this post for my blogroll.  Every single one of those people are an inspiration to me.  Not just on their blogs, but as human beings.  Look lower.  All those people whose tweets you see floating past?  They are also an inspiration to me.

Every day.

I don’t give you this information as a way for you to find inspiration.

I give it to you because you clearly need that many examples of what being an inspiration truly is.

/rant.

What do you think of when you think of a hero?

Spandex tights and a cape?  The ability to leap tall buildings in a single bound?  Maybe just a great car and some really awesome things hanging from a utility belt?  Wait, it’s the invisible jet and bullet-proof jewelry, right?

Yes?  No?

I see heroes every day of my life, and not one of them drive a bat mobile.

…The girl who hasn’t had the easiest of lives. It would be so simple for her to just say ‘screw it’ and be bitter and hate the world for the hand that she got dealt. Instead, she chooses to support and uplift those that she cares about. And she does it even when she’s not having the best of days.

…The guy that, out of nowhere, sends a couple of messages to someone just to check on their well-being. Sure, it’s a simple gesture, but it’s one that somehow, through all of the bullshit that comes down on people every day, this guy remembers to extend.  Not just with his hand, but his heart.

…The woman who’s fighting to hang onto herself, despite the turmoil that’s going on inside. Trying to figure out where she’s going, without looking back at the pain of where she might have been; she’s trudging through the dark without a flashlight, but she refuses to believe that the middle ground doesn’t exist ahead, somewhere.

…The man who is willing to share the weight of someone else’s world because he doesn’t want to see the people that he cares about suffer the load alone. The one that will stand and take a hit just so someone else doesn’t get bruised. The one that is that way just because… well, because he is.

…The rare people whom you trust to be there, no matter what. The ones that you never have to look for, because you know just where they are. The ones that live within you, just as much as they live in your world. The ones that make you unafraid to fall, because you know without a doubt that they will be there to catch you.

These people may not look like heroes.
They may or may not look good in tights.
I don’t really need to know that, frankly.

If you passed them on the street, maybe nothing about them would scream out at you that they practice heroism in their daily lives. Maybe to you, they would be just another face in the crowd, another body taking up space on the planet.

But to someone, they are so much more than that.

To someone, she is an inspiration.

To someone, he is calming.

To someone, she is a powerhouse.

To someone, he is a light.

To someone, they are everything.

To someone, they are heroes.
Every one.

Look around you.

Have you seen your heroes, or have you looked past them?

Have you thanked the heroes in your life?

I’m thanking mine.  Without them, I wouldn’t be here.