Creativity. Inspiration. Where does it come from and where does it go?

How can it be here so suddenly with no warning but more times than not be so hard to find?

I know that every creative has these thoughts and longs for a muse and wants to be in the zone and holding flow more often than they actually are.

I am not the first to question this.

I am not the first to wonder.

To try and find the inspiration. To look for the movement in my brain. To ask and beg for the Universe or God or Allah or the Muse to bring me favor.

We all want our chosen deity to look down on us and bestow the blessings of word or sight or ideas – whatever creative thing we endeavor to find in our moment of… of what I’m not sure.

That moment of staring at the screen or canvas knowing there is something inside you that really, really wants to get out but it can’t seem to find the key to unlock the door in your brain or heart or guts where it’s being contained.

What do you call that moment? That moment full of both hope and frustration right before the light bulb flickers on above your head?

I don’t know the right word.

But here I am, in that moment, where so many have sat before me. I know that I am not alone in this feeling, in this moment.

I am not the only one who has ever questioned their gift, their genius, their calling.

If I am to write and create and ideate to make the world a better place, if this is why I was put here on this Earth, why can’t I do it right now?

I tell people my new self-employment is both exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. The idea that my actions or inactions on any given day will have an impact on my ability to pay my bills.

But it’s more than that.

It isn’t just about paying the bills. It’s about having this sense of why I am here and how I am meant to change the world and at any given moment not being sure the ideas and words will come to me when I need them most.

Exhilarating and terrifying doesn’t quite begin to explain the feelings deep down inside telling me to push forward but yet not giving me what I feel like I need to do that.

Creation and inspiration are about more than words and art and music.

They are interwoven into our everyday life. And you can go through your life without focusing on being inspired or creating and you won’t be impacted by their absence. But when you focus on it and you look for it and you want it so badly you feel physical pain and it just isn’t there, it’s hard to know where to turn and what to do.

I don’t have a silver bullet for how to make it better – for how to make your muse appear.

This morning, when I sat down to write for you, and nothing would come, and I walked and paced and laid prostrate on the patio (yeah, I actually did that) willing the inspiration for just the right article that would inspire your thoughts and ideas and nothing came….

I just started typing.

And I wrote this instead.