Repiphany

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#23 - Inspiration Ramifications

TehArgus

on Sept. 13, 2009

Everyone at some point in their life has aspirations of being a writer. Not necessarily in the sense that they expect to be employed as an author or a playwrite… more generally in the sense that they have an instinctive quality of prose which sets them apart from their peers and allows them to convey meaning in a somehow special way.

I was no exception to this rule. Last year, during my final semesters of undergraduate study I maintained a blog to which I attended at least twice a week with insightful and significant ideas, the topic of which I now forget completely. As graduation came and went, and the lazy months of summer stretched out before me, I believed that in my blog I had discovererd the perfect way to keep my mind occupied and my finely-honed pen sharp. With no inane essays to write, no meaningless exams to prepare for, no insipid sessions of student government to attend, I was unfettered! I could dedicate myself to fathoming the infathomable mysteries of the affairs of man. I would be come a respected collumnist like those minds honored in the New York Times and the Washington Post, except my news paper would be my own website, and my audience would be the whole of the reading world. In short, I would become the intellectual I knew that I would become, and the greats of the online community would marvel at my insight and my persistence.

I graduated in late May, and spent the entire summer playing video games. Occasionally, I would read the news paper. This generally occured only at the times when an internet connection was not available for video games.

Quite naturally I was appalled at my lack of motivation. Where, I demanded of myself, were the brilliant ideas that had burst forth from my fingers each moment of the school year? Where was my desire to speak and to be heard? Whence came this lethargy, this lacking of cosmological brilliance that had so dazzlingly lit my intellectual plane of existence? A number of times I was so disappointed with myself that I actually paused my game for a minute in self-reproach.

Now I have returned to the world of academia, and as I peruse books and pore over intellectual essays, I believe I have come closer to answering these questions. I had assumed that the desire for self-expression was my default position, that my bouts of non-brainy pursuit were merely breaks for the brain, some sort of a natural rest period for a mind primarily designed for higher pursuits. My returning to school had provided evidence that this is not the case, in fact that the reverse is true. I discover that I am a lazy, lazy person, and I really do enjoy sitting and playing games without a second thought for the world around me. What drives me to write is not a burning desire to express my learned and brilliant opinions. Instead I write to avoid reading the learned and brilliant opinions of other people! How ironic that in my efforts to avoid reading the legitimately insightful works of others, I developed an affinity for writing and start droning out purile and pointless works of my own.

I have four hundred pages of reading to do this week, and I have never felt more inspired in my life.