The Five Stages of True Inspiration

I figured, since my blog is called “Inspiration Avenue,” I might as well write about what true inspiration really is. I don’t know why I haven’t done this yet. Well, let’s stop wasting time. Here we go:

Now, when I say inspiration, I don’t mean, “Oh, this painting is pretty inspiring.” No, I mean, an inspiration that is powerful enough to shift your paradigms and turn your world upside down. That’s what I mean. Something that punches you in the face and knocks you down, and when you try to get back up, nothing looks the same anymore.

There are five stages of true inspiration, really.

The first stage is: You have no inspiration. You’re basically a dumb potato and immune to the acknowledgement of anything innovative at all. The technological world is advancing and you’re clinging to your rusty phonograph. You say stuff like, “Who the hell is Twitter?! Everyone keeps talking about him!”

The second stage is: You come across something that, as mentioned before, punches you in your precious, elegant visage. Something that makes you shout, “DOUBLE YOU TEA EFF!” It hit’s you and you have that “Woah!” moment. It will confuse you, and you won’t know if you’re standing right side up or if you’re floating around in weightless space.

The third stage is: You start to ask questions. You research that inspiring thing that biffed you right between the eyes. “What is this? Where did it come from? Has this happened before? Is this a new thing? What’s next? What can I do about this?” Stuff like that. You’re really interested, and you want to get to the core of the inspiration that is beginning to shift your paradigms.

The fourth stage is: You researched as much as your brain could absorb, you talked to all kinds of people, you wrote down all your thoughts, so you basically know everything about whatever smacked you. Now you know what the next steps are, and you’re pretty much prepared to incorporate it in your life from now on. But don’t tell anyone about it yet! It’s important to keep the inspiration to yourself, because if you tell someone something, the chances that they’re really interested are not that high. So… um… just wait. That brings us to step númer fimm. (You probably knew already, but that was Icelandic for “number five.”)

The fifth stage is: The inspiration you got is now part of your life. You’re actively living it, whatever “it” is. And now that you’re living it, people will notice that something is different about you. You’re doing something that makes people think, “What’s up with that awesomeness?” They will approach you and start asking questions. You don’t even have to approach people to tell them about your awesome inspiration – they will come up to you and ask you.

So now, people will get hit in the face by your inspiring thing because you’re actively demonstrating it in real life, and then they’ll start asking questions, they’ll research things, and eventually apply it to their lives as well.

… And that’s what true inspiration really is.