Inspiration Vs…

A phone call with my mother took a turn toward artistic endeavours the other day. We never really discuss our artistic pursuits. They lie in different areas and well… we’ve both lapsed. The conversation was cut short as most mobile phone calls tend to be but it got me thinking. We both agreed that we had been inspired once, that we had felt a creative spark, all past tense. So what had happened? What had kept us from letting out that creativity?

I can’t speak for my mother of course but I got a little introspective. I started to mull over the last time I’d been really inspired to write something. It was back when I’d been playing in a band. Sure I’d had ideas since then, but nothing that I ever fully realised and certainly never committed to paper. Ah ha… I thought… paper…

Since leaving the band it’s been qwerty all the way. From on desk keyboards, laptops to virtual keyboards on touch screen devices. I had stopped putting pen to paper. Technology has come a long way since the band started and it’s moved further still since I stopped playing and I had come to rely on electronics and gadgets to try and get my ideas in one place.

The trouble with this seems to be that I don’t treat an electronic document with the same respect that I treat an actual written page. Electronic documents can hide a multitude of sins. Delete a line here, reword something there, the ability to work on the fly and make constant corrections might seem like a joy to some people but I find there is an odd occasion where a line of dialogue or a description gets lost in the constant changes when the first words written would have worked but are now gone, edited from existence and almost unable to be captured again in the wild of the imagination. Maybe it doesn’t flow as well working electronically. I know myself my typing skills leave a lot to be desired so when I’m looking at the screen I’m compelled to stop and make corrections as I go and I lose the natural pace that I am inclined to write at.

There is also a beauty in the way a pen can flow across a page. A simplicity to it that has become so ingrained in me over the years that tapping away on plastic keys or a glass screen can never quite hope to reproduce. It would be easy at this point then to say that I should switch to paper. But then I’m trading back the ease of carrying a device that does it all to lugging a heavy note book and relying on ink running out again. A small price to pay I guess for capturing an idea as appears but a price never the less.

The hard reality is that I’ve been breaking my creative side so long now that age is having an impact. When I was younger everything was inspiring and ideas spilled forth like fresh cold water from a mountain stream. I’m not certain the ideas have dried up but I know I have become more jaded to them in age. It’s hard not to look around and think it’s all been done before. Nothing feels quite so original these days.

Complacency sets in. I’m left with shiny toys and dreams that will never see the light of day.

I could blame it on the technology. I could blame it on age. The truth is I really have no-one to blame but myself. If I let this go… if I let the ideas fade… what am I left with. Should I just accept that those days are done or should I remember that I used to be a dreamer?

Perhaps I have to think about it some more… not that thinking ever hurt. That’s where ideas are made.