On Inspiration
Essay 21
Often is man struck with the most refreshing clarity of mind when he finds himself casually listening to that which is noble and enjoyable to him. Essays, lectures, recitations, and philosophical tractates are all worthy of making a man full of innocuous thoughts into a serious scholar.
A man whose mind is assailed with brevity and nicety of phrase goes from a dunce to utter genius; the most striking aspect of this is the speed by which man comes to this state of mind. When man is stern, annoyed, and weighted down with various considerations of a lowly, dubious kind, he is no more than a temperamental child; but the further he reflects on what, on its surface, seems vague, he at once finds the right configuration of words necessary to express his ideas. Length at once no longer takes hold of him. He no longer feels bound to this tradition or that mode of composition. He instantly becomes his own man and becomes the tide which rises all boats fortunate enough to be situated where they are, for without that good fortune, they would remain stagnant upon the ocean shore.
When man finds himself free from any prejudice and simply provides what his mind has gathered for him, he speaks with more clarity than when he is bent over his page, anguishing over whether the accusative case is preferable to the dative.
The construction of thoughts is like that of inspiration, appearing ex nihilo, without our consent, and so quickly fleeting that we feel duty-bound to make something of it, lest we forever miss our chance of turning this temporary genius into an eternal memory for all mankind to gaze at with admiration from henceforth—if it be good enough, that is.
To be good enough is simply to accept yourself as you come, as you are, in your own nature, bound up with every contradiction and ready syllogism. I was once a stickler for more formal, traditional approaches to composition, but now I see the mind doesn't play by those rules. Creativity is stronger than consistency.
Inspiration is like alacrity without diligence; what use is the labor of a Renaissance man without his own nature allowed full reign to explore the whole canvas of the world? Art, it may be called, is bound up in every man who once thought they had conjured up something profound. I'm not speaking here aphoristically, or elegantly, or with any pretension to style—I simply wish to show my emphasis on not caring at all. Truest art is precisely that, that which is made visible to all, and in a manner that is almost glass-like; it requires only the blind to not see it.
I wrote some 5,500 words to a friend of mine in a letter earlier today, and while I thought what I said was honest, true, and concise, it seemed to me to not exactly pop out; it rather appeared lifeless, prosaic, too verbose—too much emphasis on sentimentality rather than in the manner I write now—not caring in the slightest whether what I say is beautiful or not, only constructed with brevity and brutal honesty in mind. I like this approach more, if I may be honest, but I struggle with it, for it seems my natural inclination is to turn what should be demure and serious into something laconic—some poetic flight of fancy, as if every stroke of my pen had to dance across the page. That is not me, but at the same time, it is me, for I trained myself to see the great in everything; and it seems like some aspect that requires me to be stern also requires me to see the world in a darker aspect, as if I am too willing to give up what I strove so hard to acquire.
I talk about this Hegelian dialectic so often that I bore myself with it. I always have to stare at a blank sheet of paper and ask myself: do I approach this as Bacon and Schopenhauer, or as Nietzsche and Emerson? Either way, I will regret it; for in one way, I give up life (authorial voice and imagery primarily), but in another, I give up conciseness and clearness. Do I sacrifice on the altar of brevity for the sake of losing imagery, or do I become the aphoristic court jester for the sake of entertainment alone, my own ideas be damned?
No matter what I choose, inspiration wins in the end—so just go with how you feel in the moment, and let that be your only guiding star in composition. All words not taken from your own head are worthless, and, moreover, what use is reading an author who themselves has nothing to say on the matter, having never considered it? Leave these small-minded people to addle their minds over this or that complexity. While they struggle with their own minds, others have a slice of culture all on their own, completely free from any stupid prejudice—that is all writing by inspiration as I see it.
🍷, the verbose, the laconic -