Decidedly Uninspired

A lot of good things have happened lately. I even remembered to blog about some of them.

I pulled out my list of goals for 2009, and while I didn’t accomplish most of them, I have accomplished (with a lot of help) the two that were the biggest, most ambitious and most time consuming:

1. Establish a coworking space. Viola: The Urban Hive
2. Facilitate/host a creative retreat. Viola: Freelance Camp Sacramento

Still. For some reason I find myself decidedly uninspired lately. Why is that? And how do I fix it?

The first question I should probably ask is, what inspires me?

Ideas. Talking and dreaming about possibilities recharges my batteries and makes me want to zoom off into action. But that’s the key — I can only talk about ideas so much before I get antsy. If people just sit around and talk all the time, well, then, nothing happens. And that drives me nuts. Get up and go DO something. What is the thing that gets people to act on ideas? Is there A thing? Or is it hardwired inside a person’s brain? For me, a stimulating conversation gets me fired up to go work on my ideas, develop them, make them better, and fine tune them until they are ready to present to the big wide world.

Creativity. I almost labeled this one art, but it isn’t really art that inspires me. Besides, art is so subjective. We just had a conversation about this very topic last week at CinemaSpeak — how do you determine if a motion picture is a film or a movie? Some folks said there’s a definite answer to this question, but others argued that there’s no way to know the creator’s true intent. But anyway, the point is that regardless of the product or end result, it’s the creativity of others that inspires me. The process of taking an idea from abstract to birthing it into a tangible manifestation. It relates back to ideas and possibility, because creativity in others gives me hope for the possibility of my own creativity.

Organization. This may sound crazy, but organization inspires me in the most nerdy way. Some nights, I would rather stay home to rearrange my books than go out for dinner. That doesn’t mean I actually stay home to organize, but the desire is definitely there. A lot. It works for me on a couple of levels. First, it’s something of a challenge: how much can I get rid of? How can I rearrange my closet to make the most use of the space? And who doesn’t love a good challenge? Second, organizing is oddly calming. There is something about quietly putting away laundry, folding socks just the way I like them, making sure all the tank tops are systematically folded and stacked in order of color from dark to light. It’s a routine and it’s comforting. Third, putting things away in their rightful spot moves my mind from chaos to order. It’s like after you’ve been wine tasting all day and you have to clear your palette if you want to keep tasting and distinguish new flavors. So organizing clears my mind and I come up with some of my best ideas as a result.

Now back to the original question: why am I uninspired and how do I fix it? (Side note: I think I just came up with my next blog post.)

In the meantime, what inspires you?