When Inspiration Finds You
You'll know it.
Having a routine can be draining and I admire those who can function without a daily ritual set in stone. The spontaneous person who gets up at a reasonable time in the morning, but their reasonable time feels too late for someone like myself. My day starts typically by 6:30am and lately I’ve been wondering if it’s worth it. Is this the best use of my time when I could be lying in bed daydreaming. Who am I trying to overachieve for?
There was a time in this world when a person had one job and that job only. There were no side hustles to compete for your time, unless you were an artist. But even back then, there was no 5 to 9 routine before or after your 9 to 5 and I truly envy that. An artist or a writer just woke up, ate some toast, black coffee, a totally effortless morning and got to their creative work. Or at least contemplated about their work. I’m sure they also found distractions easily, but they did it without technology. A record player, a scenery and a ton of random thoughts coming at them all organically.
I heard Sofia Coppola on a podcast say that she doesn’t exactly have a writing routine, that once she starts she just writes all night long. For a few minutes I honestly hated her. The fact that she can do that sounds like winning the creative lottery to me. It’s so unfair that she can dedicate an entire 6-7 hours to writing a script. I hate her. I don’t hate her, but that is the one thing I become jealous over, is other people’s productivity, because that only means that they were suddenly hit with a bolt of inspiration. Something kept driving Sofia Coppola to write until early morning. So jealous.
Then I came across a YouTube interview of - I want to say it was Stephen King. He gets up early, has an effortless breakfast, starts writing right away first thing each morning. Eats lunch at noon and then gets back to writing for another few hours. Not so jealous of that, since it seems attainable, in fact that should be the writing routine I aspire to now. He approaches his days with a sense of urgency, ‘I have to write something today.’ My question is this - do they only work when they’re inspired or are they constantly inspired?
And how do we become inspired in our ever growing gig economy?
That’s why I have to set myself to a routine. I am so insecure of becoming too still, too lazy, too much free time that inspiration will never find its way to me. Pablo Picasso famously said “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” He means that in order to be inspired every day, you have to do the mundane work. Sometimes I feel like all I’m doing is showing up, with my daily routine of staying busy, which may or may not be the mundane work Picasso referred to.
It’s only when you are busy doing something that inspiration comes. I have to believe that. Every day as I willfully dole out my tasks am I waiting for the lightening to strike. Sometimes it happens, but not often enough. Does it then become a waiting game?
I am intuitive enough to know when signs come, a little here and there to let me know that I’m likely on the right path. Synchronicities begin to happen. There are signs that either spiritual, mental or physical abundance is coming your way. I’ve received a few these last few months, like when I came across this TikTok of actor Glen Powell talking about a piece of advice Denzel Washington gave him, that it’s a marathon, not a sprint. I saved it, because for some reason that advice meant something to me. The following day, in my daily horoscope it stated “It’s one of those days when it’s easy to forget that you’re in a marathon, not a short-distance sprint.”
Sunday 6/9
Monday 6/10: my horoscope
There’s been a few other little oddities that have come my way within a 24-hour notice, but this always sticks to my mind. Because I do have to constantly remind myself that my goals are not a relay race, and to always stay in marathon mode.
Living a life of routine is boring, but with the busyness of life, I’ll be able to recognize when that special lightening of inspiration hits me. I’ll continue on with mundane work, and work hard at them everyday. The only abundance I hope for is that flash of creative flow when I’ll have no choice but to write all night long.
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LINKED IN: Articles of Interest
The costs of producing a big scale fashion show and the return of profits (if any)
5 GOOD THINGS
Watch this Chloe Sevigny podcast interview she talks about being the IT girl, being young Hollywood in the 90’s and her upcoming film Bonjour Tristesse (based on one of my favorite books and favorite women authors)
Penelope on Netflix, a coming-of-age limited series about a 16yr old girl who runs away to live in the woods. It’s a true survival guide meets Call of the Wild for the Gen Z. I think teens and adults would enjoy it, although a slow burn, the ending is OMG.
The Lovers is a British rom-com series about an Irish celebrity TV host who meet-cutes with an Irish woman who works in a supermarket. They fall in love, but he lives in London, she’s in Belfast and the title is completely different from what I assumed, it actually relates to past troubled politics of Ireland. It’s UK funny, sweet and dramatic enough to get through in a weekend. Available on AMC in the States.
What Stanley Tucci ate in a year, it’s all in his newest book Taste. He revels on food intersecting with his home life and life on film sets. I mean, who doesn’t love the Tucci.
This TikTok of a girl being laughed at for her The Row Jellies because they look like a fish & chips basket 😆 Nobody tell the Olsens.
I am excited for Ina Garten’s new book, Be Ready When The Luck Happens: A Memoir, this iconic woman has let her guard down and unpeeled the many layers of her personal onion (see what I did there, I think she’d approve). She shares about her difficult upbringing and the trauma and blessings in her life. The thing is, that when you’ve also grown up in a house of domestic abuse, it’s hard to read about others going through it - at first, well it’s not an easy read. Watching it in a film isn’t easy either, but it hits different I guess, like you almost watch it to see if the actors get it right, if it’s palpable to your own experience. Reading about it is too real, the words scream at you and you’re back in therapy just like that. All this to say that I admire her even more now, proving that good work can come at any age, at any point in your life. Never too late.
Until next week,
DNAMAG
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